Hey y'all,
Sold my offset smoker last weekend and picked up a SnS for the kettle I bought a long time ago.
This is my first time really smoking anything on the kettle so I'm going to list out what I did and hopefully someone can critique from there what might be attributing to my problems. I'm just over 6 hours in right now and am probably gonna switch to the oven next time the temp drops unless someone has some good in process suggestions.
Around 9AM I put a dozen briquettes in one corner of the SnS, doused em with everclear, and lit em up.
I went inside, unpackaged the pork butt (boneless unfortunately), seasoned it with memphis dust, tied it up so it held together a bit.
About 20 min after initially starting the charcoal I filled up the rest of the SnS with more charcoal, and then put the meat on the kettle and added 1 quart of hot water.
I'd left the lid off while I let the first 12 briquettes take. When I put the meat on they were maybe 3/4 caught.
I haven't figured out a long term temp monitoring solution for my kettle yet as I really didn't cook much on it til now. At the start I'd had a thermoworks probe held about 1/4" below the grate held there with 2 loops I'd made from foil.
I had the top vents 3/4 open and the bottom vents fully open. While monitoring this the temp sloooowly climbed until it hit about 180 and stalled out. Opening up the lid showed I had decent coals going so I moved the probe to the top of the grates and held it 1/2" off the grates using 2 foil balls. This gave me a reading of just over 200 so I let it sit 15 min to see what happened til the temp started to drop.
Total elapsed time, maybe 1.5 hours or so.
At that point I opened the lid, and blew on the charcoal til I had some decent coals going again. Lid back on and finally the temp starts climbing. At around 200 again I close the bottom vent to where it's maybe 1/4 open and the top vents 1/2 open and keep a closer eye on it this time.
Over the next 15-20 min the temp climbed to 260ish then over about the next 2 hours the temp dropped to 220ish.
Once I hit 220 I tried to open the vents a bit again but the temp just kept dropping and wanting to hover around 180.
total elapsed time so far maybe 4 hours or so.
At this point I probably spent an hour messing around with it but could not get it to stay over 225 for more than 5 min.
I'd open the lid just a bit at the SnS side and blow air in. Every time I did this I could raise the temp maybe 5 degrees or so. Once I got to 250 again I'd try to adjust the vents differently to let it hold there but it'd just fall back below 210 within 5-10 min.
I have cleaned the ash out, added charcoal (unlit), moved the coals with a stick so there's no excess ash, etc.
Funny enough the last time it dropped below 210 I went and took the dog for a 15 min walk planning to put it in the oven when I got back, on my return it had gone back to 225 so I left it.
Then I got on here and joined up to see what you guys thought. As of now it's at 237 so over the past 45 min the temp has actually stayed pretty good for me.
I'm wondering if I just didn't start out poorly by not having the coals caught all the way? By the time they were 3/4 lit they were already shrinking rapidly so I didn't think having 12 fully lit coals that were 1/2 size was a very good option either...
I know reading that it sounds like the lid's coming off quite a bit but with the exception of when I moved the thermometer I've just been cracking it for 5 seconds or so and keeping it directly over the kettle.
Thermometer cables are run through the vents, not under the lid.
I'm also using binder clips (6) to keep lid on tight.
Thermometer probe is designed to be leave in for meat, not air temp (if if makes a difference?).
I'm using HEB mesquite charcoal from the local store. Next time I go into town I will get some kingsford.
Anyways, any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers!
Pic from just before I changed thermometer position.
Sold my offset smoker last weekend and picked up a SnS for the kettle I bought a long time ago.
This is my first time really smoking anything on the kettle so I'm going to list out what I did and hopefully someone can critique from there what might be attributing to my problems. I'm just over 6 hours in right now and am probably gonna switch to the oven next time the temp drops unless someone has some good in process suggestions.
Around 9AM I put a dozen briquettes in one corner of the SnS, doused em with everclear, and lit em up.
I went inside, unpackaged the pork butt (boneless unfortunately), seasoned it with memphis dust, tied it up so it held together a bit.
About 20 min after initially starting the charcoal I filled up the rest of the SnS with more charcoal, and then put the meat on the kettle and added 1 quart of hot water.
I'd left the lid off while I let the first 12 briquettes take. When I put the meat on they were maybe 3/4 caught.
I haven't figured out a long term temp monitoring solution for my kettle yet as I really didn't cook much on it til now. At the start I'd had a thermoworks probe held about 1/4" below the grate held there with 2 loops I'd made from foil.
I had the top vents 3/4 open and the bottom vents fully open. While monitoring this the temp sloooowly climbed until it hit about 180 and stalled out. Opening up the lid showed I had decent coals going so I moved the probe to the top of the grates and held it 1/2" off the grates using 2 foil balls. This gave me a reading of just over 200 so I let it sit 15 min to see what happened til the temp started to drop.
Total elapsed time, maybe 1.5 hours or so.
At that point I opened the lid, and blew on the charcoal til I had some decent coals going again. Lid back on and finally the temp starts climbing. At around 200 again I close the bottom vent to where it's maybe 1/4 open and the top vents 1/2 open and keep a closer eye on it this time.
Over the next 15-20 min the temp climbed to 260ish then over about the next 2 hours the temp dropped to 220ish.
Once I hit 220 I tried to open the vents a bit again but the temp just kept dropping and wanting to hover around 180.
total elapsed time so far maybe 4 hours or so.
At this point I probably spent an hour messing around with it but could not get it to stay over 225 for more than 5 min.
I'd open the lid just a bit at the SnS side and blow air in. Every time I did this I could raise the temp maybe 5 degrees or so. Once I got to 250 again I'd try to adjust the vents differently to let it hold there but it'd just fall back below 210 within 5-10 min.
I have cleaned the ash out, added charcoal (unlit), moved the coals with a stick so there's no excess ash, etc.
Funny enough the last time it dropped below 210 I went and took the dog for a 15 min walk planning to put it in the oven when I got back, on my return it had gone back to 225 so I left it.
Then I got on here and joined up to see what you guys thought. As of now it's at 237 so over the past 45 min the temp has actually stayed pretty good for me.
I'm wondering if I just didn't start out poorly by not having the coals caught all the way? By the time they were 3/4 lit they were already shrinking rapidly so I didn't think having 12 fully lit coals that were 1/2 size was a very good option either...
I know reading that it sounds like the lid's coming off quite a bit but with the exception of when I moved the thermometer I've just been cracking it for 5 seconds or so and keeping it directly over the kettle.
Thermometer cables are run through the vents, not under the lid.
I'm also using binder clips (6) to keep lid on tight.
Thermometer probe is designed to be leave in for meat, not air temp (if if makes a difference?).
I'm using HEB mesquite charcoal from the local store. Next time I go into town I will get some kingsford.
Anyways, any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers!
Pic from just before I changed thermometer position.
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