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Guest
Guest
I cooked a 4 pound boneless pork butt today on my completed Weber kettle smoker conversion. Started the fire using Jim Minion's method with 20 lit coals at about noon, waited until the temps hit 220 degrees on the way up and put the pork butt on the upper rack at about 12:30.
I had four probes going throughout the cook so I could start to get a handle on how the cooker behaves.
The first thing I wanted to test was the temperature readings of a probe inserted through the side above the grate compared to a probe supported by a cork towards the middle of the grate. For the first few hours, the side probe read no more than 5 degrees higher than the probe on the grate with the difference getting smaller over time. So for all intents and purposes, I can just use the side-mount probes, which makes life easier.
I also ran side mount probes at the level of all three cooking grates. These showed a consistent drop of ten degrees from the top grate to the middle grate and another 10 degrees from the middle to the lower grate. Again, these differentials tended to converge a bit later in the cook.
I had no trouble at all holding the temperatures of the top grate to 235 degrees, plus or minus 10 degrees with no water in the cooker. Early on, this took 0% bottom vent and 50% top vents (the kettle lids have four large holes in the top vent). After several hours, 0% bottom vent and 100% top vent. I never burned my fire down to the point where I needed sustained bottom vents to stabilize the temps.
Every few hours, the temps would drop to the 225 range. Opening the bottom vents for five minutes would ignite addtional coals, and closing the bottom vents as the temp started to rise would restabilize in the 235 range.
Charcoal usage seemed minimal. In 7.5 hours, I never added charcoal, stirred the fire, or even looked at it. For the final half hour, I opened the bottom vents and the cooker rose to 280 degrees and was still climbing, so there must have still been unburned charcoal.
I took the meat off the fire at 8:00 pm with an internal temp of 166 degrees -- not enough to "pull", but delicious for sliced bar-b-q. We sliced from the ends and put the middle in the fridge for a leftover meal. Next time, I'll probably cook at 250 degrees to get it done a little quicker.
The only visible air leak was just a faint wisp of smoke at the junction of the kettle lid to the body of the cooker. I'm not too worried about that. It's all brand new parts and that seam tends to take care of itself on Webers as some gunk builds up over time, forming a "gasket" on the lid. After I finished cooking, I shut down all the vents. The fire went out and, within an hour or so, the cooker was stone cold to the touch and ready for the cover -- a good sign that I don't have any significant air leaks. I'll check tomorrow (in the daylight) and see how much charcoal I have left.
Overall, I am thrilled with the way this contraption works.
I had four probes going throughout the cook so I could start to get a handle on how the cooker behaves.
The first thing I wanted to test was the temperature readings of a probe inserted through the side above the grate compared to a probe supported by a cork towards the middle of the grate. For the first few hours, the side probe read no more than 5 degrees higher than the probe on the grate with the difference getting smaller over time. So for all intents and purposes, I can just use the side-mount probes, which makes life easier.
I also ran side mount probes at the level of all three cooking grates. These showed a consistent drop of ten degrees from the top grate to the middle grate and another 10 degrees from the middle to the lower grate. Again, these differentials tended to converge a bit later in the cook.
I had no trouble at all holding the temperatures of the top grate to 235 degrees, plus or minus 10 degrees with no water in the cooker. Early on, this took 0% bottom vent and 50% top vents (the kettle lids have four large holes in the top vent). After several hours, 0% bottom vent and 100% top vent. I never burned my fire down to the point where I needed sustained bottom vents to stabilize the temps.
Every few hours, the temps would drop to the 225 range. Opening the bottom vents for five minutes would ignite addtional coals, and closing the bottom vents as the temp started to rise would restabilize in the 235 range.
Charcoal usage seemed minimal. In 7.5 hours, I never added charcoal, stirred the fire, or even looked at it. For the final half hour, I opened the bottom vents and the cooker rose to 280 degrees and was still climbing, so there must have still been unburned charcoal.
I took the meat off the fire at 8:00 pm with an internal temp of 166 degrees -- not enough to "pull", but delicious for sliced bar-b-q. We sliced from the ends and put the middle in the fridge for a leftover meal. Next time, I'll probably cook at 250 degrees to get it done a little quicker.
The only visible air leak was just a faint wisp of smoke at the junction of the kettle lid to the body of the cooker. I'm not too worried about that. It's all brand new parts and that seam tends to take care of itself on Webers as some gunk builds up over time, forming a "gasket" on the lid. After I finished cooking, I shut down all the vents. The fire went out and, within an hour or so, the cooker was stone cold to the touch and ready for the cover -- a good sign that I don't have any significant air leaks. I'll check tomorrow (in the daylight) and see how much charcoal I have left.
Overall, I am thrilled with the way this contraption works.