Convenience

[Polarbear777]

18.5 hours at 225F. Did short ribs for he first 7 hrs. Left it running. Ambient temps around 30-40F.

No refuel at all. pk360 with fireboard and pit viper control.

Guess I can’t justify a pellet smoker...

[Frozen Smoke]

Interesting. I don't have anything that would monitor it and I guess i don't really feel the need to know but I'm sure my stick burner holds temp that long after I stop feeding the fire.

[RonB]

I would be very happy with that cook.

[Rod]

Like the SnS, a Fireboard/fan combo is a game changer.

[Troutman]

I agree with you Polarbear777 , using the Fireboard/Pit Viper combo with a PK, a kettle or a WSM gives you the flexibility and control of a PID pellet pooper. Plus, you get the smoke profiles the pellet just lacks imo. I still cook on my pellet but am finding myself, almost 3:1, going to fan control on my Webers more often.

[Rod]

Ditto

[Polarbear777]

The other consideration is if the fan etc fails you just default to using the vents manually so no big deal.

I’ve done many manual cooks in the pk360 and since they put the thermometer at grate level it’s pretty much dead on what the probes read, so if I have the thermapen to check the meat I’m set for full manual.

[Polarbear777]

With fan running 225.

[Polarbear777]

Repeated this test with B&B Char Logs and got 21.2 hours at 225F. Ambient temp was in the 40sF.

[Polarbear777]

With fan set to 325F

[Polarbear777]

With fan set to 475F

[Polarbear777]

Cooking a rib roast at 225F Manual vent control (no fan).

[Polarbear777]

Trying to put many of these fan/no fan tests in the same place, all with the pk360.

[Polarbear777]

Setup for a no-fan max indirect temperature test. The pk360 excels at two zone cooking and of course directly over the coals you can get a ton of heat, but what is the max indirect that is practical?

Above in the fan-assisted tests, ~450F was achieved for a couple hours without much trouble, but what could we reach without the fan?

Plan is to use a charcoal basket that takes up half the pk360 and is as deep as the gap between the coal and the cooking grates. Goal is to maximize practical indirect cooking temp ( and still leave room to cook something indirect on one side).

[Polarbear777]

Fired up and about to close lid. This is three full chimneys of lit KBB.




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[Polarbear777]

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the grill dial is running roughly 10-20F higher than the electronic probe so far.

[mountainsmoker]

I am not surprised that the PK360 thermometer is running up to 20 degrees hotter than your probe at grill level. It is 2-3 inches above grill level and will always read higher.

[Polarbear777]

20 degrees is easily the side to side variance as well.

I’ve noticed 50-70F degrees between coking grate and coal grate on the indirect side and another 50-70 between an elevated little more grate on the indirect side. That’s about a 4” height difference.

Definitely have to rotate/switch for large capacity cooks.

[au4stree]

I gotta know where you got the rolled steel for your Charcoal basket. You're not using rolled flashing, are you?

[Polarbear777]

Stainless Steel strips 4” wide and stainless bolts/nuts from McMaster Carr online. The small basket was made with 0.06” thick which is a pain so the larger one I think is less thick.

[Polarbear777]

Hour and 15 minutes