My first smoking attempt on my 22.5 OTS.

[m grau]

After reading various threads/posts here and on other forums on smoking on your kettle I finally gave it a try. I bought a 6 pack of fire bricks from ACE and set the OTS up according to the smokenator specs with 48 Kingsford briketts. I also foiled 3/4 of the charcoal grate.

I lit 12 brikets, bit had a really hard time getting such a small amount to light, even with the upside down chimney starter. So i ended up lighting about 25 and then moved only about 15 - 18 into the OtS.

Here is the pork butt. About 3 lbs and a light dusting of Dizzy Dust.

Here the butt is just put on the grate. I used a disposable pie pan with cold water as a heat sink.

Here is the smoking OTS.

I had a hard time for the first couple of hours to control the temp well. the temp int he top of the dome went up to 350. I closed the vents almost completely, but it took quite a bit of time before the temp went down.

Here I took a peak after 3 hours or so.

Shortly after that I finally got a hang of heat control. I got the temp zeroed in at 250.

After the butt had been on for about 3 1/2 hours we had guests come by and we went to the pool for three hours. When i got back the temp was still at exactly 250. I took the temp of the butt, but the way the probe went in and out made it clear the pork was done.

Here are two pics of the pulled results. My wife is usually not a big pork fan, but she ate a good quarter of the butt while I was still pulling it. So the actual yield was higher that it is shown here, but I was just thrilled she liked it as much as she did. I hope the closeup shows the smoke ring well enough. But since these were all snapped quickly with my iPhone, they may not be good enough to show it.

All in all I was happy with the experience and the results. I am sure it is easier with a WSM or a BGE, but for and investment of $20 this is definitely a viable option.

 

[DK Smith]

I had a large spike in the temp at the start of a cook when I first started too. So I tried some things and had success. I cut down the number of coals for the start (about 10 for me) and tried putting the hot coals on the outside of the unlit coals. I also tried using less wood than you use (1 or 2 fist size chunks). I think a ton of wood can really spike temp no matter how slow you try and start your coals. Somewhere a long the line I got lucky and the process seems to work like a dream every time now.

Also, shutting down your vents 20-30 degrees before you hit your target temp in startup seems to work well for me. Pork looks great. Nice color.

 

[George L]

Congratulations on your first OTS smoke!

As far as briquettes go I usually just take a full chimney and when about a third at the bottom of the chimney get going I usually dump the whole thing in the kettle. I don't think you need an exact number of briquettes going for a successful Minion method.

 

[T Bounds]

m,

When I'm using the lighter upside down I have saved a brick broken in half, stand that half brick up, put a weber lighter cube on top of it, and set the lighter chimney over the brick and cube. The brick gets the cube close enough up to the coals to light with no problem. If you like this method you can buy a brick, score it in the middle pretty hard, then break it with a hammer. This method of lighting few cubes has worked great and cheap and easy for me. Give it a try, and great looking Q by the way!

 

[Brad L]

I think those pictures show everything you were hoping. That meal looks great!

Glad to see you got your kettle dialed in, they can really smoke great, and you should be able to get 2 big butts on no problem.

The number of lit coals is not critical, now that you know the settings on your grill, just set the vents and add the lit. Cover quickly and keep closed as much as possible. If you light too much, it will choke itself off to where it needs to be. The addition of the cold meeat will help bring it down a bit too,

Nice Job