Still having trouble!


 
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Greg Rempe

TVWBB All-Star
I have had a total of 3 smokes now and I am running in to the same problem (I think).

Yesterday I smoked a 12lb Turkey breast. Took about 7 hours and was great, but, had trouble maintaning 250 degrees and had to invert the access door to get and keep it there.

I used 1 lit and 1 unlit chimmney of kingsford to start. Also, I used 1 gallon of cool tap water to start and didn't re-fill during the process. Around the 5 hour mark the temp started to drop off and I had to invert the access door to get it back up. I also added 20 or so coals tot he fire which seemed to help.

Please give me some help on fixing this issue as it is a tad frustrating for me.

Thanks to all!!
 
What position were your vents at? Was there wind? Was it hot? Lots of variables here, the more info you let us know, the more we can help.

Also, to do poultry, most WSM users will use a dry water pan or perhaps no pan at all. Poultry will cook just fine in the 300-350 range, which requires some tweaks for the WSM to get up there. I actually do all my poultry on the Kettle because it's a lot less hassle to get the kettle in that temp range. I use the WSM for low and slow only.
 
Greg,
I since your breast turned out fine along with your cooking time I will suggest that you check your thermometer and vent positions. I have had three cooks also, and had little or no problem maintaing 250 degrees. It appears you were using the standard method. Also, what was the weather like on that day...cloudy, windy, hot,...etc.? I also noticed during my cooks that the coals would maintain for close to 6+ hours. You may need to add more coals. One other question is were you trying to bring the temp down to 250 during the first part of the cook?
 
Rodgers,

My vents were all wide open. Perhaps I did let the coals decompose to far before adding some fresh ones. The weather was about 70 degress, sunny, with some wind, but I didn't think it was so much that it would effect the cook.

Jason, I would suggest doing a turkey because even though I am still a little green when it comes to the smoking part, the outcome was great!

I will try less water(if any) and replenish the coal supply sooner. Thanks for your help dudes. Pork butt is on tap for this coming weekend! Any cooking suggestions!?!
 
Greg
A couple of things, you took a lot of heat to heat the water try sand and if you had to add coals then the amount you started with was not enough.
Try filling the fire ring about 3/4 full and add 10 to 20 lit coals. Start cooking and control the pit temp on the way up.
Jim
 
For what it's worth, here's the method I developed over 4 years of using a heavily modified Brinkmann smoker (with adjustable vents - cooks very much like a WSM), and I use it for the WSM also:
1. I start a full chimney of charcoal briquettes (my chimney is not as big as the Weber chimney). Once it's fully going, I dump it into the charcoal pan, on one side.
2. I then fill the pan the rest of the way with unlit charcoal, and add my smoke wood.
3. I fill the water pan (Brinkmann charcoal pan that holds about twice as much as the standard WSM water pan) with HOT water. I usually pour in one kettle of boiling water, and a second of hot tap water. Why burn my charcoal to heat the water?
4. I put the meat on right away. With the vents fully open, I watch the temperature in the smoker. Once it passes 200 degrees, I start closing down the vents. With experience, I know how far open they need to be to hold right around 250, so that's where I put them. Then I go away for about 20 minutes.
5. After 20 minutes or so, I check the temperature. If the vents need to be tweaked, I do it.

After this point, I generally check the temperature about every 1/2 hour, although it normally doesn't fluctuate much, if at all.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Al <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> to this I say...GREAT avatar.
 
Al,
I could get 6 hours or so from the Brinkmann, before I'd have to stir the coals. Usually, at about the 7 hour mark I'd take off the body of the smoker, dump the ashes, and add some more unlit charcoal - butts usually took about 10 hours, and I'd have easily a half-pan of charcoal left over. I haven't tried to see how long the WSM will go this way... I've mostly cooked ribs on it so far.
 
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