Trouble keeping temp DOWN on a windy day - Original Kettle


 
S

steveD

TVWBB Fan
I smoked a rack of spareribs for Mother's Day dinner yesterday and, as the thread title suggests, I had a terrible time keeping the temp low. It was a pretty breezy day, but in the past whenever I've been dealing with a breeze/wind it always seems to suck the heat out resulting in me having trouble maintaining temps, not raising the temp. For the majority of the cook I actually had the bottom vents completely closed and the top vents open about 25%. WIth the bottom vent cracked the slightest bit, the grill ran close to 300*. With the bottom completely closed, the temp would sllllooooowwwwlllllyyyy fall to around 240*.

After I was done with the cook, I closed off the vents fully to kill the coals and went in for dinner. About 3 hours later when I went to cover the grill, I opened it up and saw that several of the coals were still glowing red. I'm thinking I obviously have an air leak somewhere on my grill, but I've never had this problem before and I have not done anything to damage the lid or grill since the last time I smoked. Is it possible that the wind was just forcing more air than normal through whatever 'leaks' I have, or do you think it is more likely that there is something I should be looking into before my next smoke? Also, are there any products available to seal around the lid of a kettle grill other than foil on the edge (I assume the foil will want to pull off every time I remove the lid to check the coals/foil meat/etc...

Thanks.
 
I've used those office binder clips to seal the lid better. The one touch cleaning arms aren't going to seal off the bottom completely so if you are closed you are probably still getting air in.
 
You may want to check to see that your vents (assuming 3 "daisy-wheel" types at bottom) all sit firmly against the enameled outside of the grill bowl.
Sometimes, over the years, they get pulled away - such that when you think they are closed, air still leaks between the rear of each vent wheel and gets drawn into the holes.

If I were you, I would consider disassembling the vents and place them on some large, somewhat curved surface, and give them a few strategic "bonks" with a rubber or plastic mallet. Then, when you re-assemble them, the tension on the center bolt should draw them pretty tightly against the bowl.

Also make sure that you lid sits centered on the bowl - if either is out-of-round, gently squeeze it back to as near-round as you can get it. When either section is out-of-round, it will leak more air than it should between the bowl and the lid.

On windy days, I also find that it is important to see what is facing into the wind and away from it:
-If you want it HOT, keep open vent at bottom INTO the wind and cover vent facing down-wind direction. This pulls air in the bottom and out the top.
-If you want it to run LOW - do the opposite, this should minimize the airflow to the coals without stifling it

Hope that these suggestions help
 
Ron G. said:
You may want to check to see that your vents (assuming 3 "daisy-wheel" types at bottom) all sit firmly against the enameled outside of the grill bowl.
Sometimes, over the years, they get pulled away - such that when you think they are closed, air still leaks between the rear of each vent wheel and gets drawn into the holes.

If I were you, I would consider disassembling the vents and place them on some large, somewhat curved surface, and give them a few strategic "bonks" with a rubber or plastic mallet. Then, when you re-assemble them, the tension on the center bolt should draw them pretty tightly against the bowl.

Also make sure that you lid sits centered on the bowl - if either is out-of-round, gently squeeze it back to as near-round as you can get it. When either section is out-of-round, it will leak more air than it should between the bowl and the lid.

On windy days, I also find that it is important to see what is facing into the wind and away from it:
-If you want it HOT, keep open vent at bottom INTO the wind and cover vent facing down-wind direction. This pulls air in the bottom and out the top.
-If you want it to run LOW - do the opposite, this should minimize the airflow to the coals without stifling it

Hope that these suggestions help
Click to expand...

Ron, I believe you may have misunderstood me. I barbecue on my Original Kettle, which the one touch system with a single arm that controls the covers on 3 vents on the bottom. One possibility, I suppose, is that I had the grill butted up against a table which could have changed wind patterns resulting in more air flow into the vents somehow (I have not previously had the table set up in this way, and I doubt it contributed but possible I suppose). The other thought that I had was that the vast majority of the coals were being re-used from the day before when I lit a lot more coals than I needed, and I used chips instead of chunks of wood for smoke. Each time I opened the lid to check the ribs, I noticed that it seemed like there were pockets of coals lit throughout the 'snake', rather than just at the one end. I suppose it is possible that the wood chips caught fire from having it too hot initially, and then lit more charcoal which resulted in simply having too much fire to keep temps down... Maybe...

I checked the lid and it seemed to sit nice and flush and didn't seem to have any gaps or "uneven-es" that I could detect. Are there any easy ways to snuff out air leaks?
 
Sorry - You are correct (I thought that "Original Kettle" still had the 3 bottom "old-school" vents vs. One-Touch system on Gold / Platinum.)

The Lid vent pointed to INTO the wind VS. Down-Wind STILL applies though, to some extent - More so on windy days than days with light/no breeze. (I am fortunate in that most of my Smoker use is on the East side of a N-S fence, which knocks-down the prevailing Westerlies that w get.)
 
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Ron G. said:
Sorry - You are correct (I thought that "Original Kettle" still had the 3 bottom "old-school" vents vs. One-Touch system on Gold / Platinum.)

The Lid vent pointed to INTO the wind VS. Down-Wind STILL applies though, to some extent - More so on windy days than days with light/no breeze. (I am fortunate in that most of my Smoker use is on the East side of a N-S fence, which knocks-down the prevailing Westerlies that w get.)
Click to expand...

The top vent was pointed directly into the wind, so it makes perfect sense that the wind was forcing air down through the top vent causing the coals to burn hotter than I wanted. So obvious, yet I hadn't even thought about wind direction as a possible factor... Thanks, man I'll keep this in mind for the next time I'm going low & slow on a breezy day.
 
A wind break will help a lot. I have 3 walls made of cinder blocks in a u shape and can smoke with lawn chairs blowing across the yard. I can add more if getting funky wind directions.
 
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