Am I Overthinking the PBC?

[sclawrence2013]

Purchased a Pit Barrel Cooker PBC a couple weeks ago.

First cook was 2 racks of baby back ribs, second cook was 4 thick center cut pork chops.

Both cooks provided the best flavor I've ever had with my backyard BBQ.

However, I'm struggling with temps and tenderness. I think it's self inflicted. I've been chasing temps with a temp probe hanging off one of the rebars. Seems like my PBC wants to settle at 360 degrees unless I start messing with foil in a couple in the rebar holes which still takes like an hour to get it down to low 300's.

Should I focus on monitoring the barrel temp or should I take more of a Noah Glanville approach and not care one bit about temps and just know that 2 chicken halves take exactly 2 hours to cook?

I know some of y'all have had to have had this struggle at first as well.

Scott

[Jerod Broussard]

1. Try lighting less briquettes.

2. You may have a poor seal on the lid. Nothing brings up the temp like a leaky lid. You can put some weight on it to see if that helps.

[mrichie1229]

The beauty of the PBC is in its simplicity. You do not need to mess with air flow by adjusting the bottom vent or closing the space around the rebar. If you are concerned about running hot/ temperature spikes, you can light less charcoal at the beginning of your cook. I do this sometimes depending upon the outside temp, wind, and what I am cooking.

Relax, you've got this sclawrence2013!

[TomfromtheSoo]

As already mentioned the PBC is pretty much set and forget as you have already heard if you watch Noah’s videos. I’ve had mine for probably eight years and don’t measure Pit temperature but do thoroughly measure food temperature before calling it done.

Tom

[Potkettleblack]

Generally speaking, if you’re thinking about your barrel cooker more than set it and forget it, you’re overthinking. Make sure your lid is on correctly, your vents are set for your altitude, and let it run.

[Sid P]

Your lid is probably leaking. Mine leaked like a sieve when I got it , and even when starting with just a few coals and blocking a couple rod holes with foil the temp would keep climbing to 400° or higher.

I recommend putting a whole bunch of fat on the rim of the drum and on the rim of the lid to create a seal, and cooking with a cinder block sitting on a towel on top of the lid. I wouldn’t cook anything but chicken until you can keep the temp down in the low 300’s.

Here’s a video of my PBC smokestack when I first got it. Note that two of the rebar holes are plugged with foil…

[sclawrence2013]

I specifically looked for that exact issue with my last cook yesterday. I only saw smoke coming out of the rebar holes.

[Duanessmokedmeats]

Try a 12-5-5 lighting method.
Chimney lit for 12 minutes, dump lit coals in basket (that is in Barrel) scattered with lid off for 5 minutes, then put in wood chunks and put lid on, no rods for 5 minutes. Put in rods and hang meat, and put on lid.
If you still have leaks around the lid put 2 towel wrapped bricks on the lid.

[sclawrence2013]

I'm going to try that lighting technique this afternoon. Yesterday I did 40 briquets in the chimney for about 25 minutes before dumping in the basket.

[Duanessmokedmeats]

sclawrence2013 Way too long.
All the briquettes do not need to be lit before dumping in.

[DennyWoo]

I light the chimney and dump it in the basket at 14-15 minutes. 25 minutes in the chimney might be too long?

[Donw]

In case you missed it I believe everyone with a PBC should read this thread:

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/forum/charcoal-drums-barrels-and-bullet-smokers/pit-barrel-cooker/12614-light-my-pbc-fire-tips-on-lighting-and-maintaining-temperatures

[sclawrence2013]

I have it printed out. I think I'm going too long in the chimney before dumping into the basket.

[dpearce]

I use a probe to monitor the PBC temp (as well as the food), but it's only for a couple of reasons.

1. I've checked the meat, and accidentally left the lid slightly cracked open several times before, so when there's a temperature spike, the grill probe tells me this pretty quickly and I go and make sure the lid is seated correctly.
2. I'll run the PBC in the winter and in cold weather, it can run quite a bit cooler. With the probe, it'll give me a decent indication when the food might be done, and whether or not I should crack the lid a bit or wrap the PBC with a welders blanket.
3. Informational. Sometimes it's good to look back on my cooks, so I can get a better idea of what temp the PBC was running at, the last time I cooked similar meats, which ultimately tells me about when things will be ready.

[Smoker_Boy]

Have you tried rotating the lid around to see if it seals better in a certain location?

When I bought the rotisserie ring for my Weber kettle, I had a lid leakage problem until I found the sweet spot.

[dpearce]

I'll second this advice. Over time, my lid has built up some crud on the underside. I try to keep it clean but doesn't always work. I've had to rotate my lid a couple times to get a better seal. It's pretty easy to tell if it's leaking when you first load in some wood for smoke.

[shify]

You are definitely overthinking it. In the PBC you should not be chasing temps. I rarely leave a probe monitoring the temp of the cooker unless I load a lot of meat in there and am worried about snuffing out the fire or for a longer cook where there may be questions of having enough fuel. That being said a few things could impact your temp:

1) Your bottom vent is too open for your location. I know they give guidance based on height above sea level but its a bit more than that. Over time, my PBC has been in a few spots in my backyard and one spot was in sort of corner/cove area with little wind or circulating air and I had trouble getting the temps to maintain. I moved it out slightly and that issue went away. In your case, perhaps your PBC is in a breezy area which is exacerbating the issues, so you might want to shut the vent a tiny bit more and see what happens.

2) you have a leak in your lid - you said you didn't see any smoke coming out but there still might be a leak. Anyone who has taken the lid off for even 20 seconds has seen the huge spike in temp and can attest that even the smallest bit of air has a huge impact. So throw some bricks or something else on the lid and see if that helps.

3) Change your lighting style. Its possible you let the coals get too hot when you start and it never settles down. Agree with the above comments but don't chase time in the chimney - look for clues. I light the 40 briquettes in my chimney and just when the top layer has a tiny bit of ash on the corners, I dump it in the PBC. This can take 15-20 minutes depending on the coals, the size of the chimney, etc. Definitely don't wait for all the coals to be ashed over. I then let it ride for 10 minutes to make sure the basket is nice and lit and then add the rebar/lid and then go inside to get my meats and then go right into the PBC - so maybe another 2-3 minutes. I know some wait a bit longer to add the meat to let the temp settle a little bit but I'm not concerned about a high temp at the outset.

Doing the above, my PBC spikes to around 375-400ish (when I actually monitor) right before the meat goes in and then within 10 minutes or so, gets down to around 280ish. But like I said, when I do things like ribs or anything that takes less than 4-5 hours, I don't even bother monitoring temp.

[sclawrence2013]

I think it's number 3. I'm going to try a shorter time in the chimney before dumping into the basket. I went about 25 minutes last night.

[jfmorris]

I would not fool with or worry about cooking temp in the PBC. I would instead focus on doneness of the meat. You can use a leave in probe with the wire snaking through the rebar holes to monitor chicken. I wouldn't bother monitoring ribs. Too little meat too close to the bone. Instead, with ribs, time = tenderness. If your ribs were tough, they were likely pulled off too soon.

I say this based on using other smokers. For PBC specific advice, listen to everyone else. Especially if the PBC queen herself, fzxdoc , comes around.

[TripleB]

I only use my PBC for pork butt and smoke on the grate, so it is a fairly long cook.

1) Fire using the Minion method.
2) Probe in the PBC and one in the pork butt.
3) Somewhat control temp by putting in or taking out the two rebars.

[jayjordan]

In my experience, over the course of cooking on the PBC you will get a better lid seal as some buildup around the rim develops. And, as previously mentioned, there's probably a sweet spot where the lid fits tighter than anywhere else.
When I first got the PBC I obsessed a bit with monitoring the temp, probably because I was used to a Weber Smokey Mountain. After watching videos and reading what people were doing I paid more attention to the meat and what it was doing than temp of the barrel.
On a side note, the best PBC ribs I made were using a rack straight out of the freezer. Drilled a hole between bones to put the hook through and put into the PBC. They came out really moist and tender.

[JCBBQ]

I didn’t read the comments but there is a great thread about lighting your pbc by fzxdoc - probably stickied. Start there.