Minion Method Warm-Up


 
T

Travis E

New member
I'm doing my first smoke using the minion method on a 10 lb brisket, and I'm wondering if someone can tell me exactly how long it *should* take for the smoker to come up to cooking temp?

I used about 40 lit charcoals as the guide on the website said (ambient temp right now is about 63 degrees), I filled the water pan with hot tap water, and the smoker still has not reached 200 degrees since it was started about 30 minutes ago. Right now, it's hovering around 160.

Maybe I did something wrong?

Thanks!
 
Well with 40 lit all vents open you should be up to temp after 30 mins. But if i were you just put the meat on now.
 
18" WSM.

It's doing better now. I don't know why it took so long.

I didn't explain very well (it was early in the AM for me) - I started with the meat off, it hit 200 relatively quickly, I put the meat on, and it stayed at 160ish forEVER. It hit 200 degrees after about 50 mins, and now it's just kinda sittin there. I just went out and stirred the coals a bit and opened the vents back up. We'll see how it goes, I guess
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Well, I can't get it above 212 degrees. Should I not have filled up the water pan all the way?

I'm about to add another 1/4 chimney of charcoal to try and bring the temp up.
 
Travis, if you told us where your vents were set it might help with suggestions. I don't use water in my pan so I can't really comment on temp control with water. I would add 1/2 chimney of hot coals. You can also add smoke wood which will increase temps at least temporarily. Did you start with a full ring of coals?

Mark
 
I was reading your post late. How did your cook turn out? What kind of charcoal were you using i.e. lump or briquettes.
 
Hey Travis...
I started my 18 at 10:00 a m this morning with 3/4 ring of kingsford blue and 3 chunks of wood buried. I add a small (Ace Hardware) chimney of lit coals, probably 30 to 40 or so.
I use the Brinkmann charcoal pan as a water pan...it holds about 1 1/2 gal of water and filled it with cold tap water.All vents are full open. Ambient temp is in the 50's with no wind.
Now at 11:00 am the lid temp is 243 which is approaching my target of 250, so i'll close vents about 25% and let it settle.
 
Thanks for the help, guys. Yes, I started with a full ring of coals, and all my vents were set 100%. I'm using Kingsford Briquettes with oak smoke wood.

It's still going. The temperature is holding just fine now; things got much easier as the sun came up.

I guess I'll try starting with a little more fuel next time. It never actually hit 225 until the sun came up over the trees, though; it hovered right at 210-212ish from around 6:15 to 8:00.

Thanks again, guys. We'll see what develops in another 6ish hours from now.
 
Just have to be patient. With all vents open, the unlit has to catch and the temp will rise. No need for any concern after a half hour.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Travis E:
Thanks for the help, guys. Yes, I started with a full ring of coals, and all my vents were set 100%. I'm using Kingsford Briquettes with oak smoke wood.

It's still going. The temperature is holding just fine now; things got much easier as the sun came up.

I guess I'll try starting with a little more fuel next time. It never actually hit 225 until the sun came up over the trees, though; it hovered right at 210-212ish from around 6:15 to 8:00.

Thanks again, guys. We'll see what develops in another 6ish hours from now. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll tell you that the heat of the day (or lack of) can change the temp by 30+/- degrees easily. I am in Northern California and I notice a HUGE difference with the heat of the day (or against it!!)

In the sun in the summer, my WSM 18.5 will act up and be hot all day (like 30 degrees +). So much so that if we are going to have a somewhat hot day, I will move the grill to a shady spot before even starting and then deal with the slightly cooler temps. However, when we reach the fall and the sun gets lower in the sky and the temp goes down by quite a bit, I will plan on building a slightly hotter fire as I know it will act as if it is a little cooler.

DD
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Travis E:
Thanks for the help, guys. Yes, I started with a full ring of coals, and all my vents were set 100%. I'm using Kingsford Briquettes with oak smoke wood.

It's still going. The temperature is holding just fine now; things got much easier as the sun came up.

I guess I'll try starting with a little more fuel next time. It never actually hit 225 until the sun came up over the trees, though; it hovered right at 210-212ish from around 6:15 to 8:00.

Thanks again, guys. We'll see what develops in another 6ish hours from now. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I was reading a book by a reknowed BBQ chef and his recomendation (which I have not tried yet) was to really get the fire going before adding the meat. He seemed to be from the school where it is easier to make a hot-fire-cooler than it is to make a cool-fire-hotter.

In my limited experience, I have to agree that the starting position/temp is critical to the remainder of the day. I recently had one of those days where the fire was cool all day and I was fighting to get it hotter.

I had tried lump for the first time and I think I never got it fired up enough at the beginning, thinking the lump was going to cook too hot all day (from my reading here.) When the day was finally over, I had a lot of unburned charcoal in the bottom.

So, tomorrow I am going to use lump again but make sure I get it get going well before I assemble the WSM and add the meat.

I am still quite new at this but the lump seems to be more difficult to get going well and collectively. The K blue bag has worked very well for me. I believe it is the consistent size which helps a lot for consistent starting/burning but also easy to measure the quantity.

So, with lump I may have found that due to the inconsistent size, I may have been shorting the quantity which does lead to a cooler fire and the dreaded "all-day" fighting with a cool fire.

DD in NorCal
WSM 18 noobie
 
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