Stoker Issue - Overshoots

[Darrin H]

After being out of the smoker world due to RL concerns for a while, I finally got my 22" WSM and stoker out and did some St. Louis ribs this past weekend. Ribs came out fine, but oh lordy was I worried for a bit. Take a look at the overshoots:

I am assuming that the overshoots are because I used too many lit briquettes (a bit over 1/2 Weber chimney), but I also didn't measure the water going into the pan and I basically filled it up. Are there other common causes for the overshoots I am seeing?

Also, congrats on getting into vBulletin, very nicely done!

 

[Chad M.]

Your overshoots might be because of the water. I stopped using the water pan and switched to a foiled 14" clay saucer when I got my Stoker. My theory is that because the water requires so much energy to heat up and won't ever get over 212 degrees (boiling point), the Stoker has to work harder to get up to temp, over fires the coals, and results in overshoots. Then when it shuts off all that water sucks the heat out of the smoker. That's just my theory, I could be wrong. But I've never had problems with overshoots with just the clay saucer. In fact, if I'm aiming for 250 I usually set the initial target temp to 225 and then once it reaches that point I bump it up to 250. That has worked well for me.

And yes, you are also probably using too much lit charcoal to start. I usually use about 30 lit, depending on the weather conditions. Good luck.