Ok, so I fired the snake up early Sunday morning at about 12:30am, got her up to temp and laid the meat down at around 1am. The wife woke me up just before 8am and asked if I needed to check the BBQ so I got up and was pleased to find that kettle held the temperature at 275. I don't yet have a probe thermometer that I can place on the cooking surface, I only have a dial one that's directly on top of the lid so I figure whatever that reads the cooking area must be about 15 or so degrees less. The butt was at 170. I took a peek inside and noticed that the snake had gone about 3/4 of the way, but there were several unburned briquettes along the ash trail. I'm guessing I set them too far up the sides of the kettle (I went 2-2-2) so I restacked them closer to the burning portion. A few hours later I noticed that the temperature had gone down to 225, so I took another look. It seems that I had the bricks too close to the snake that as it burned the charcoal grate was getting clogged with ash, not allowing air to get to the fire. I tried to push the ash down as far as I could and clear up as much of the grate as possible and repositioned the coals and added more. The temp got back up to about 300 so I closed the top damper a bit. Another hour later the temperature had gone down again to 250. So about every hour till it was done, I kept having to clear the ash just so the fire could breath. The entire cook took about 14 hours and several hours of messing with ash. Once the meat reached 200 I wrapped it up in foil and kept it in a cooler till dinner time. Boy was all that work worth it cause it pulled with ease.
But there were a couple things I noticed. The meat was very moist and flavorful, but compared to the last butt I did, the bark wasn't as sweet and not as smokey. I used the exact same rub and the exact same wood (hickory). Maybe I over smoked the first one, but why would the sweetness not be there? Don't get me wrong, texture and taste wise, the second one was better. I was just missing the sweetness in the bark.
Here are a few pics:
Rubbed before sticking in the fridge for 8 hours
After 7 hours of cooking. I forgot to take a picture of how the snake looked and the unburnt coals. This was after I restacked them.
Finally done after 14 hours. You can see how clogged the grates are and how little air the coals were able to receive
I should've taken more pictures but I was caught up in the moment. This is after several people have made their sandwiches already lol
So I liked how this turned out, even tho I had problems with the ash. I think I'm going to try it out again without the bricks and see how that works. I just worry about one end getting burnt, but I guess I can rotate it like Jeff mentioned. Thanks for all the input and help, this is only the second time I've tried this and I'm very pleased with the results. But I couldn't have done it without reading up on it here and other sites. Oh and my lil helper claimed the Smokey Joe as her own since it was more her size, so I may have to get another one for me so I can convert it to a mini WSM lol. But she's learning quite a bit too, she threw in some briquettes and wanted to check the temperature each time I checked mine. Future smoker in training! Now if I can only get my wife to stop screaming about her hands being all black from the charcoal....
