Mother Nature's temper tantrum


 
PeterD

PeterD

TVWBB Super Fan
I'm about 2/3 the way through what has been, unwaveringly, the most difficult cook I've ever done. Two butts on at precisely midnight. Took about 90 minutes for temps to stabilize at 230 so I set the Maverick's alarm and hit the rack for hopefully a few hours' rest.

Couldn't sleep a wink until about 4, then at 5:45 the low-temp alarm sounds. I get up, open up a couple of vents, spritz the meat with A.J....and then look to the west. It was pitch black; that roiling, seething mass of cumulonimbus that you just know is about to thoroughly mess with your day. The deluge began around 6 and lasted until 7:30 and my grate temp was crashing badly, despite all 3 vents open wide. When it hit 175 (meat at 165) I ventured out, inverted the door and propped it upside-down on the screws and that got things sorted out for about half an hour.

By then it was time to turn the butts over and it was at that point that things started to go pear shaped. Since that time I've been chasing the ET-73 from one extreme to the other. Too cold (190 and dropping), fuel low. Add more lump, crack the door a tad, it jumps to 275 within 3 minutes. Close the door, close the bottom vents and it stays at 275. Open the lid, spritz, leave it off for a minute to help dissipate the heat, lid back on, shoots up to 280 almost immediately before dropping. And so on and so forth, all morning. At this point, all I want is a stable cooker temp so I can try and get another hour's rest (party starting at 3 and I'm on about 90 minutes' sleep). Door is closed, 2 vents closed, the third at 1/2-open and the temps are falling through 250. After what's gone on before, I just know they're not going to play nice and hold at 230 to 240, but rather will just drop until the low-temp alarm goes off again. Like I said, most difficult cook ever and probably the last overnighter I ever attempt until I get a blower system.
 
That certainly was quite a storm.. hit me out here in around 5:40, was unreal for 15 minutes or so, let up a bit then we got hit with another cell around 6:15 before it all ended.

I have a single butt on now myself.. got it on as soon as that all passed.
 
that must have been what came up my way this morning but I have to confess..I was still in bed...
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Peter, I'd keep away from opening the lid . No spraying, no turning meat,nada. The more you open the lid the longer the cook takes. IMO,basting or spraying doesn't add anything to butts.
 
Well, it looked like it was holding steady at around 240 so I hit the sack for about 2 hours. When I got up I found the ET-73 had gone out of range and stopped responding, obviously quite some time ago and the fire had burned completely down. The grate was 140,t he meat was 170 when I went to bed and is now at 160.

I was using hardwood lump (no ash whatsoever) and had to refuel twice. I'm now firing up a full chimney of blue K. I can't trust the WSM any more for long cooks. This is the second one I did (brisket last year) and the same thing - good for 6 to 8 hours then wild fluctuations. How do you guys maintain 12-16 hours straight? I just don't understand. Vents closed, temps drop like a rock, vents open, 300 degrees in 5 minutes, close down half-way, fire goes out, open full, 300 degrees. Yet it's fine for a 5-6 hour rib cook. Begging the wife for a blower system now or a new electric smoker
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For long cooks, I use briqs, just more stable and predictable.
Every time you lift the lid, you create a massive draft of fresh O2, causing a really good temp spike. So now you have to fiddle with the vents to control the spike, then the fire is starved. Open the vents, another spike...etc.
Once you learn to trust the cooker, and leave the lid on, things will smooth out.
 
So, I just dumped on 3/4 of a chimney of Blue K now and temps shot up to 300 degrees within 3 minutes, vents closed, door closed. Sigh. I give up. I'm just gonna watch it like a hawk and try to keep things under 300 at this point and hope the food isn't trashed at this point. I have 25 people coming in 2 hours and expecting PP around 5. The small butt is now 157 degrees (was in the upper-160s) and the big one is 162 (was 179).
 
Peter,butts are REALLY hard to mess up. I use K for all my long(6+ hours)/overnight cooks. I use lump for shorter cooks. The only issues I've ever had with the WSM have been operator errors!
 
Well, see, last time I went with Blue K and the fire smothered itself after 7 or 8 hours. Brisket had to be finished in the oven and took 20 hours (14-pounder). Banging on the legs didn't really seem to do the job and I had to disassemble completely. Today, I had the added fun of 2" of intense rain in 90 minutes and of course it got into the bowl of the WSM and mixed with the ash from the spent lump (no-name "365" from Whole Foods). That was extra fun.

I have never seen any other brand of briquettes besides Kingsford at HD, Lowes, Ace or any local supermarket. Buying online doesn't seem like a cost-effective solution either. And with 200 pounds of blue-K in the basement ($8/40 lbs, not passing that up!) I've gotta try to find a way to manage with that going forward.

Meanwhile, what should I do about today's solution? Butts are way down in temp, still in the plateau and I've got the grate somewhat steady in the upper-270s for the moment. Meat has been on nearly 14 hours. I think this setback may have pushed my timing back but the wife is demanding answers of how much longer. As I said, we budgeted 16 hours plus an hour's rest and maybe an hour's fudge-factor. I suspect this put me back 3 or 4 hours but I don't know enough to even begin to guess.
 
Pete:

I'm assuming it's 2:00 PM in NJ right now, you want to eat at 5:00PM, and the butt temps is at 160. So you'd want to pull them at 4:30 and foil them. No way they're going to be ready by then as you have not gone through the plataeu yet. I'd remove the butts, double foil them and throw them in the oven at 300 degrees, take them out when they're like butter(around 190-195), then let them set for 30 minutes. In the oven the butt temps should rise amount 20 to 24 degrees per hour. If they get ready earlier, say around 3:30 I'd throw then back on the WSM, unfoiled, just to let the fat render out, they take them off and foil 30 minutes before pulling.
 
All's well that ends well, I suppose but in retrospect, this was an extremely challenging situation. We had plenty of hamburgers and sides at the ready in case the butts failed to deliver but thankfully that wasn't the case.

The 3/4 of a chimney of Blue K did the trick and I kept the grate temps up around 280 but there was a lot of fiddling with the bottom vents for about 30 minutes after dumping the lit in there. Having two butts but only one temp probe plus the thermopen also meant needing to open up more than I'd have liked.

Once I was steady around 280 for an hour both butts quickly recovered and burst through the plateau around 3:00. By 330 both were probe-tender and temps were anywhere from 195 to 210, at which point I took 'em off the smoker. As I transferred them to foil for their final rest, the smaller of the two pulled apart in my hands, it was that tender! I pulled the first after 45 minutes but left the second in for another hour as guests were rapidly and voraciously Hoovering-up the smaller butt. The second had thick, phenomenal bark and I used forks to pull it rather than gloves. All the first and about 1/3 of the second were devoured, along with #5 sauce, slaw, tater-salad and Bush's beans (with some added bourbon for good measure). Pics are on my cellphone and will hopefully be posted as time allows tomorrow.

While my guests loved the results I noted the following observations:
1) end result was quite greasy. Moreso than I'd expected but then again there was a lot of marbling in the butts.

2) Bourbon makes things better.

3) I want a Stoker before doing another overnighter.

4) I used Jane's Butt Rub and, while quite tasty, there was no heat to it in the final product, despite using the NM chile powder. I hate spicy-hot, but a little "pop" of heat at the very end would have been nice. Cayenne is probably too hot but what would give that tiny but noticeable zing, without burning guests' mouths?

5) Single Malt and Partagas Cigars, after three pulled pork sandwiches, make for a magnificent Memorial Day, as does the company of good friends.
 
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