Seeking Wisdom Of The List

[Jake Wilson]

Freaky Deaky...

Okay, novice smoker here, never had this happen to me and I hope those w/more experience can shed some light on the whys and wherefores...

Smoking an 8 lb butt, picnic, 7 lbs. after trimming, set on the bottom rack of my 14.5" WSM. There's a rack of pork spare ribs cut in two on the top rack in a Brinkmann rib rack along with a small baby back rib rack in the same rack with the Pork spare ribs

Hooked up my Maverick ET-732 thermometer with the food probe in the butt and the pit probe on the top rack using the supplied clip to hold the pit probe (grill rack clip)

Started off with a full charcoal ring in the bottom but lit it Minnon style using a 25 ounce metal can w/o a top and bottom where the lit coals went. Smoke wood used is all apple. I laid 1/2 dozen small sized apple wood chunks on top of the lit and un lit coals, 3/4's fist (size)

Fired it up around midnight, started off around 210-220 degrees Fahrenheit and was monitoring the pit temps through to around 6 AM while I did chores around the house and garage and never saw temps higher than 226. Food temp started out in the mid 40's and was about mid to high 150's when I hit the shower at 6 AM. Also, I used the water bowl and filled it to the top with hot water at the front of this cook

I set the lo and hi pit probe alarm at 205 and 240 degrees and the food probe alarm was set to 190, figuring after I got out of the shower, I'd catch some sleep and hopefully awake to the food probe alarm going off at 190 degrees, IOW, thinking that so far, it was an uneventful cook, and the remainder would stay that way. Fat chance

I left the Maverick receiver in the bedroom on the other side of the house, not sleeping w/Mrs. Jake so I wouldn't wake her. So I get out of the shower, go into the spare bedroom and heard the generic alarm on the Maverick beeping. Not sure what I'd find, I looked at the pit temp, it was reading 284 degrees. What the....?, I was only in the shower no more than 15-20 minutes, the pit probe was reading 224 when I left it no more than 20 minutes earlier, so the pit picked up 60 degrees in 20 minutes

Sure, that's possible and that's what happened, but why would it run between 220 asnd 226 for approx. 6 hours then all of a sudden, pick up 60 degrees?

Currently, I'm trying to stabilize temps, when I investigated the level in the water bowl, it wasn't dry but it was quite low so I pulled the rib rack and set it on my Performer's table, I kept the butt on the lower rack and it too was set on the Performer so I could refill the water bowl, and I used cool (temp) water, and in hind sight, since the temps are going up and down while I'm trying to stabilize the temp in the smoker, I'm thinking I should have used warm to very warm water so I wouldn't see the bouncing temps like I am now...

Yeah so this is turning into an all nighter<LOL> The good news is, the meat (all of it) has a nice bark on it and I poured 5 ounces each of apple juice and apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle and gently sprayed it all down before putting the cooker back together, setting the meat and the racks back in...

I think I covered everything...thoughts?

 

[Frank H]

what was the question again?....

 

[DaveW]

Think the water was the issue. Water turns to steam at 212 degrees, and it acts as a damper of sorts on your heat. As the water disappeared, the damper was removed and your heat spiked up. To some extent, your butt could have played a small part as well. When it's cold, it will lower the chamber temp. As it heats up, the chamber temp will inch up as well presuming that you are supplying a constant temp to begin with.

 

[Jake Wilson]

Think the water was the issue. Water turns to steam at 212 degrees, and it acts as a damper of sorts on your heat. As the water disappeared, the damper was removed and your heat spiked up. To some extent, your butt could have played a small part as well. When it's cold, it will lower the chamber temp. As it heats up, the chamber temp will inch up as well presuming that you are supplying a constant temp to begin with.

~~~Thanks Dave!, makes sense to me=

I finally crashed around 8:30 AM and awoke to the sound of the Maverick alarm again, this time the under temp of the pit, saying it was now 205 degrees. Seems I was running out of coal so I fired up the chimney, added some fresh fuel. Meanwhile-

breakfast of champions!

as you can see, the pit is picking up steam again so I should have enough fuel to get through the stall

the bigger picture is, I'm used to doing the longer cooks in my 18.5" WSM, reserving the 14.5" WSM (as has been the practice,) for the 3-2-1 method of doing pork ribs, so this is or has been a good learning experience for me

mental note to self: use the 18.5 for longer cooks

-not that the little 14.5 can't run longer than 9 + hours on a load of fuel, it can, I just neglected to pack as much coal as I could have into the bottom for this cook

 

[Chris Allingham]

You may have had a bunch of ash fall away through the charcoal grate, causing some of the buried charcoal to get a fresh breath of air and get too hot too quickly. I've seen that before in my 18.5" WSM.