Smokin' at Altitude

[m homchick]

I'm attending a party at a friend's house in the Sierra Nevada mountains in about a month. I tend to cook at relatively low temps of around 200 - 220 in my WSM. Typical smoking times for my style of cooking on ribs is 5 hours, boneless pork butt (7.5 pounds or so) 14 - 16 hours and brisket (4.5 pounds) about 12 hours. All of this at an altitude of 1200 feet.

For this event I'll be cooking at approximatemy 4700 feet. Does anyone have any guidelines on increased cooking times? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Chet Johnson]

1200' is not so very high. It will likely make little difference. If you were at 5,000', maybe. I frequently smoke up in the sierras (a little higher than your plan) and give myself an extra hour.

Bring your foil and test with your normal pull, push, poke, and prod to determine if it's done.

 

[Tyler Montague]

We had a discussion about this in the second week of August. I had found myself struggling to get the temperature up while cooking at 6500 - 7000 feet. I had the vents all the way open and had to keep adding hot coals to keep the temp up (of course, I had 3 8lb butts smoking). For 5000-ish feet, I would guess that you need to reduce the amount of water in the pan, open the vents more, and allow 25% more time possibly. Maybe some foiling.

I think we decided that the density of the air made it harder to transfer heat to the meat. I kind of theorize that outside temperature, altitude, and humidity are the biggest factors, although I don't have a formula derived for this yet.

Good luck on the cook.