Christopher Newkumet
New member
All:
Just used my 18" WSM for the first time this weekend, and I'm hoping for a little feedback. I smoked 4 boneless pork butts, total weight about 30 lbs., following the Renowned Mr. Brown recipe/instructions pretty closely. The pork turned out great, but I had some trouble controlling the temperature, so I'm wondering if I did something, or several things, wrong. It was raining and cold all day Saturday in Maryland, but the rains stopped that evening. Still, it was kind of wet and pretty cold (30F or so) at 9:30pm when I started the coals. I used most of a 16lb. bag of Kingsford in the ring, along with 4 chunks of apple wood and some scattered hickory chips. Using the Minion method, I lit 45 pieces in chimney and started the fire. I filed the water pan to within an inch or two of the top with hot tap water. With all vents fully open, I put the meat on at 10:30pm or so. It took roughly 90-120 minutes for the temperature to come up to 250F, and I shut the bottom vents just a touch, maybe 20%, and went to bed at 2:00pm. When I checked again at 6:30am, the temperature had dropped to 175F, not ideal, but not too shocking, I suppose, since it was quite cold and a bit windy overnight. I had placed some wind blocks around the smoker, but I'm not sure how effective they were. The coals had burned down considerably and I figured I had another 6 hours or so to go. So at 7:00am I stirred the coals, plus I fired up another 40 or so in the chimney and added them along with 30 unlit pieces and a few more pieces of apply wood. This is where it got interesting. I got the temperature up to 220 or so, but it took 90-120 minutes to get there, and I wasn't able to get it to my target 250F until 10am or so. I left the vents fully open, and even added more lit charcoal at 9:00am or so. Should I have closed the lower vents? How about the upper vents? Was the water a problem; there was about a quart still in the pan when the meat was done. Perhaps there was too much ash under the charcoal grate, cutting off circulation? It didn't look completely filled down there, but I couldn't get a really good view. To be clear, I wasn't opening the door a lot, just a few times to stir, plus the times I pulled the top section off to put more coals in. I started checking the internal temperature of the meat using a wired probe (Williams-Sonoma) at 10am and was surprised that it had already hit 186F; then it pretty quickly got up to 200F by 11:15am. That's when I started taking it out; I wrapped the meat in heavy duty foil, held it in a cooler, and chopped/pulled it at 6:00pm, right before kickoff. The meat was still very warm, and quite juicy with some good bark. It really was terrific – a big hit. Also interesting was that when I closed all the vents after taking the meat off, the temperature inside the smoker spiked to above 300F for a good while. This led me to wonder if I should have closed off the lower vents, or the top vent, earlier to get the temperature to climb – it seem counter-intuitive to me, but I thought I'd ask. Anyway, all's well that ends well, but I'd like to have a better grasp of controlling the temperature, particularly for really long smoke-times like pork butt and beef brisket. All wit and wisdom welcome, and thanks in advance. I'm a newby, but this looks like a terrific site and community – there's a lot of great information here.
Just used my 18" WSM for the first time this weekend, and I'm hoping for a little feedback. I smoked 4 boneless pork butts, total weight about 30 lbs., following the Renowned Mr. Brown recipe/instructions pretty closely. The pork turned out great, but I had some trouble controlling the temperature, so I'm wondering if I did something, or several things, wrong. It was raining and cold all day Saturday in Maryland, but the rains stopped that evening. Still, it was kind of wet and pretty cold (30F or so) at 9:30pm when I started the coals. I used most of a 16lb. bag of Kingsford in the ring, along with 4 chunks of apple wood and some scattered hickory chips. Using the Minion method, I lit 45 pieces in chimney and started the fire. I filed the water pan to within an inch or two of the top with hot tap water. With all vents fully open, I put the meat on at 10:30pm or so. It took roughly 90-120 minutes for the temperature to come up to 250F, and I shut the bottom vents just a touch, maybe 20%, and went to bed at 2:00pm. When I checked again at 6:30am, the temperature had dropped to 175F, not ideal, but not too shocking, I suppose, since it was quite cold and a bit windy overnight. I had placed some wind blocks around the smoker, but I'm not sure how effective they were. The coals had burned down considerably and I figured I had another 6 hours or so to go. So at 7:00am I stirred the coals, plus I fired up another 40 or so in the chimney and added them along with 30 unlit pieces and a few more pieces of apply wood. This is where it got interesting. I got the temperature up to 220 or so, but it took 90-120 minutes to get there, and I wasn't able to get it to my target 250F until 10am or so. I left the vents fully open, and even added more lit charcoal at 9:00am or so. Should I have closed the lower vents? How about the upper vents? Was the water a problem; there was about a quart still in the pan when the meat was done. Perhaps there was too much ash under the charcoal grate, cutting off circulation? It didn't look completely filled down there, but I couldn't get a really good view. To be clear, I wasn't opening the door a lot, just a few times to stir, plus the times I pulled the top section off to put more coals in. I started checking the internal temperature of the meat using a wired probe (Williams-Sonoma) at 10am and was surprised that it had already hit 186F; then it pretty quickly got up to 200F by 11:15am. That's when I started taking it out; I wrapped the meat in heavy duty foil, held it in a cooler, and chopped/pulled it at 6:00pm, right before kickoff. The meat was still very warm, and quite juicy with some good bark. It really was terrific – a big hit. Also interesting was that when I closed all the vents after taking the meat off, the temperature inside the smoker spiked to above 300F for a good while. This led me to wonder if I should have closed off the lower vents, or the top vent, earlier to get the temperature to climb – it seem counter-intuitive to me, but I thought I'd ask. Anyway, all's well that ends well, but I'd like to have a better grasp of controlling the temperature, particularly for really long smoke-times like pork butt and beef brisket. All wit and wisdom welcome, and thanks in advance. I'm a newby, but this looks like a terrific site and community – there's a lot of great information here.
