Problems coming up to temp using MM


 
S

Steve Lenti

New member
Did 2 pork butts this weekend and I had a problem getting the temps up. Using the minion method with kingsford with about 32 lit to start. Also, using the water pan with hot tap water. It took almost 4 hours to get up to 225* with the vents at 100%. It was probably in the low 40's on Saturday. Should I have used more lit charcoal? Maybe boiling water instead of just hot tap? I also live in Albuquerque, NM which sits at about 5200 ft above sea level.

I have done it with a flower pot without many problems but IMHO the water pan is much more stable after it comes up to temp.

Any suggestions?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve Lenti:
I also live in Albuquerque, NM which sits at about 5200 ft above sea level.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is probably the largest factor contributing to your low cook temps. There are quite a few smokers here who do the high altitude thing, hopefully they can chime in with some pointers.

Heres my ideas as a low alt. guy. 32 lit should be plenty to start with. If I'm shooting for higher temps in my wsm, I allow my coals more time to get hot before assembling. Try adding your lit and wait for 10 minutes before adding the wood and middle section (meat). This should give you a good jump on reaching 225*

Another good tip I've seen Bryan give (and use myself) is that by setting the lid on slighty askew will let more air in, thus stoking your fire. When I do this I only leave it cracked open for about 10 min at a time, then set the lid back down and wait for temps to settle, it usually bumps me up around 20 degrees. Also, some people prop there access door open to allow more air flow. Hope this helps.

Brandon
 
I live in Edgewood, NM at an altitude of about 6300 feet and have tough times getting up and keeping temps. The advice of dumping the coals and waiting before adding the wood and mid section is worth looking into. I just gave in and purchased a BBQ Guru and have been happy with the results.
 
Thanks for the advice Brandon. I'm doing a couple of briskets this weekend so I will let you know how they work out.

Robert, I have looked at the BBQ Guru and it's very tempting. Haven't been able to justify the price as of yet. In the past I have used the flower pot base method and getting up the temps are no problem. But, keeping the temps steady are an ongoing battle. That is the main reason I went back to to using the water pan. I'm going to try what Brandon suggests and see how that works out this weekend.
 
Stop using water. Seriously. If you are having trouble getting to temp you don't need the heatsink ... water acting as a buffer ... like sea level warmer climate guys do. They need it to keep from going OVER their target max for low 'n slow.

Do the clay saucer thing, or just foil covered foil balls in the pan.

I'm in Calgary at ~3500ft ... but I'm also dealing with lower ambient temps than my friends down south.

Yes water helps keep it more stable, but don't worry about the temp fluctuations ... it's not like if you spike even 50ºF you've ruined your food.

The problem is that water is literally stealing your heat energy you need elsewhere.
 
I spent at least a couple years fighting with this, complaining about it, propping the door open, almost bought a Guru ... 'must need a bigger fire' ... but the answer is really simple.

You don't run a hotter fire just to keep water hot. You don't need the steam from the pan to keep the meat moist either. If you feel you really must have some steam put a tin cup with water in it in the middle of the pan.

I went 28 hours on a chuck roll cook in -28ºF (-40ºF with windchill). I had a Brinkmann pan full of water and a helluva time keeping above 200ºF. Duh.
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Trust me, I learned it the hard way.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve Lenti:
It took almost 4 hours to get up to 225* with the vents at 100%.
Any suggestions? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So what were the temps during those 4 hours?
Just how low were your temps at that time?

Make sure your lit is getting past the point where flames are licking past the top layer of charcoal and the lower layers are glowing red before dumping your chimney on top of the unlit.

Make sure your charcoal hasn't become damp too.

But I agree with Shawn W: Stop using water.

Try the clay saucer or ceramic briquettes in the water pan for long cooks.

I'd suggest a high-heat cook with an empty water pan next, like chicken parts at 300 deg, to help get the feel of higher temps.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve Lenti:
In the past I have used the flower pot base method and getting up the temps are no problem. But, keeping the temps steady are an ongoing battle. That is the main reason I went back to to using the water pan. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

When running a clay saucer or empty foiled pan, vent changes are going to more dramaticly effect your temp changes. If you decide to give clay another shot (I dont want to twist your arm, but I think you should) Start with all vents wide open until your within 20 degrees then shut two completely, when you hit your target temp, close the last vent to 50% and monitor from there, using only one vent for temp adjustments. On my wsm, the smallest adjustment to the single vent is all I need to raise or the lower the temp 10-20 degrees. Yours may let less or more air in, depending on roundness etc, but this works for me, and keeps my temps stable while using clay. However you decide to do it, I hope your briskets come out well!

Brandon
 
I am completely with Shawn here: use an empty foiled pan. At higher elevations a heat sink is unnecessary, especially at cooler ambient temps. In the heat of summer maybe a pot base or sand--maybe. Again, a heat sink is not at all necessary.
 
Here's a way of thinking about it. When you put charcoal in the WSM you have a finite amount of energy with wich to cook, but keeping water hot costs energy. Despite my avatar I'm no rocket scientist (*though I do build model rockets with my son), but here's what I came up with from some googling:


Water cannot exceed it's boiling point (in liquid form) unless pressure is applied (superheating) but it's behaviour is to absorb heat until it reaches boiling. My crude estimate for easy figuring is it takes 1500BTUs to heat the water in the standard water pan to boiling point (10lbs of water * 150ºF).

Once at the boiling point, more energy is used when water transforms to steam. This is called the Latent Heat of Vapourization and in the case of water it is 970 BTU's per pound. So, chalk up another another 9700 BTUs per every 5 hours (for 10lbs of water to completely evaporate).

I won't even guess and I don't know how to calculate how much energy is used to keep the water at the boiling point ... but certainly more energy is used keeping the water at the boiling point.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> All combustible materials have a BTU rating. For instance, propane has about 15,000 BTUs per pound. Charcoal has about 9,000 BTUs per pound and wood (dry) has about 7,000 BTUs per pound. This gives you an idea of how much fuel you'd need to, say, cook something. </div></BLOCKQUOTE> Taken From Here

If you put 15# of charcoal in the WSM, it only has 135,000 BTUs of fuel to use during the cook. How much of that energy did we use lighting up the charcoal? This is one of the reasons why MM or torch light gives such a long burn from a ring ... we didn't blow 1/4+ of it in the chimney.

We loose heat out of the top, radiated heat from the exterior surface, heat when we 'take a peek' ... it's amazing stuff gets cooked at all!!! lol
 
Note: if I sounded off in my first two posts it's with myself for taking so long to figure out the problem. Peace.
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Thanks for all the info guys. I will go ahead and try the briskets I have planned this weekend with just an empty foiled pan and see how it goes. The last time I used it without water was just after I bought it so maybe I just baby'd it too much. I will post how things go.
 
Hey Steve, I'd suggest you cut your lit in half when you do that, start your bottom vents at 50% (top always open 100%) and take it from there.

If your situation is like mine you may find that vent adjustments actually do start making a significant difference without the water.

*About normal for me was something on each rack, water in the pan and a 215ºF grate, all vents 100% ... unless I was out propping the door etc.
 
Ok, so I did the 2 briskets with a foiled water pan as well as a foiled flower pot base that I have used in the past. Filled the base with charcoal and added 18 lit coals. Assembled and tossed on the meat.

So this is why I went back to water in the water pan. No matter what my vent settings were I could not get it to stay in the sweet zone. Every hour I'd check it would be too hot 275+ or too cold 200-. I was using 1 bottom vent to start at 100% it was too hot but just the slightest adjustment to the vent would plummet to about 199 within an hour. It would stay pretty constant for an hour but then it would either be too hot or too cold.

Needless to say the briskets came out very tasty but having to stay up all night to baby the WSM is a pain.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. BTW I have even taped the door closed with metal tape to help with any leaks.
 
At least you didn't have trouble getting your temp up.

Those sound like pretty wild fluctuations. It might be helpful to use all vents equally instead of one ... I messed around with that for a while and decided using all vents equally worked better for me. Was wind gusting? Actually, how were you measuring temp and where?

Next time perhaps all 3 vents open about 25% and see how that goes.

Getting rid of a water pan has not caused me to see fluctuations like you are describing, but if you can't get it any better after a few cooks and it bugs you perhaps try 25% of the pan clean sand. It doesn't suck as much energy as water does.
 
I started this at about 7 on Friday night. By morning I started trying all 3 vents to control the temp but to no real avail. At 10% on all 3 it would stabilize at about 235 but then slowly creep up to over 275 again... shutting down 1 of the vents would again get me about 235 but then slowly creep down to 199. And by slowly I mean within 75 minutes or so. It was quite frustrating to say the least.
 
I know very well the sleepless-night-stabilize-vent-tweaking game, intimately. Sorry to hear that's how it went, it can be very frustrating.

I suspect probe placement was a factor in your wild ride, I've seen readings fluctuate like that from placing the probe tip just inside the top vent and from around the edge of a grate, outside the water pan edge vertical, but I don't think that's the bigger issue. It's the expectation of stability.

If you put the probes in your oven you will find that even ovens will vary a good deal and temps aren't even in all locations. Is a solid steady temp required to make BBQ? No. How much fluctuation can it stand? Too long below 225ºF will delay the cook, too long somewhere above 300ºF at the wrong time could diminish tenderness if going for pullable meat. Really that's about it I think. Another reason we want stability is for consistent cook times, but every piece of meat is little different so our hopes in that regard are diminished from the start.

I'll suggest start with even less lit, like 10, and the 25% vents, catch it on the way up instead of trying to get it choked down. (Isn't it nice for once to not wait 2 - 3 hours to get over 200ºF
icon_smile.gif
). Go back to a dome thermometer for cooker temp, use a probe for meat temp, if your target temp is 250ºF get a couple readings off the therm that say it's holding around 250ºF (not spiking or crashing) and go to bed. If you like set a low alarm of 199ºF and a high alarm of 300ºF. Get some sleep and see how your food comes out.

If you feel like you must have rock solid stability, that it's really important to you then a Guru or the like is for you. I maintain they aren't necessary for good results or even a reasonable amount of stability, but that of course is subjective. It's entirely up to you.
 
Meant to say also, I wish I had mentioned in my earlier posts going without the heat sink also meant losing it's stabilizing quaulity. It can help take the edge off of spikes because excess heat energy gets converted to steam (water cannot exceed boiling temp without pressure). Because it can't go higher than boiling it's not going to help much in terms of keeping your temps up during 'down' fluctuations'.
 
Well I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist watching the temperature way too much. I will try a few more waterless cooks before I jump into a Guru or Stoker. Practice makes perfect right?? Besides, even with all my bitching about temperature they did come out pretty damn close to perfect IMHO so I'm not disappointed to say the least. Just a little tired... haha

The last waterless cook I stuck about 3 crumpled up foil balls under the flower pot bottom. I didn't remember having "AS" much trouble last time as this time so maybe I will try that method again.

Thanks for the help.
 
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