Stupid Question: What did I do right?

[budbrew2]

Hey there. I have been a member of The Pit for several months and a PBC owner for about a year. I will apologize now for being long winded & for asking a possible rhetorical question, but I'm really dumbfounded. I have between 40 & 50 cooks on the PBC with mixed results. Until last night, consistent cooks have been my issue, so I'm trying to figure out what I did in order to repeat it.

My PBC is set at 1/4 open (I live in IN) and use a Thermoworks DOT to monitor my cooking temps. I have tried the chimney method and the lighter fluid method. I have followed Noah's instruction to the "T" and have also tried multiple other lighting methods listed here in The Pit and on other sights. I have left it alone, cracked the lid, left rebar in and out, foiled and not foiled. I have used KBB, lump, Stubbs and Trader Joes briquettes. Until last night, my coals would run the gamut from dying out after a couple hours with 3/4+ left unburned to all burned up and gone in 5. Obviously my temps would never lock in.

Despite my failure for low impact, set it and forget cooking, I have made some great food. With that said, I was about to throw in the towel and look for another cooker.

Then last night I made some of the best ribs yet...and it was pretty painless. Here's what I did.

Due to rain, I moved the PBC into the edge of my open garage w/a large fan blowing air into garage from open side door for ventilation. Used Trader Joe's hardwood briquettes and lighter fluid. 15 min burn, 2 racks of spares cut down to St.Loius and tips, rebar in & cover on. Temps went to 265, ten min later temps already had dropped to 245. Cracked lid until temp hit 300. Lid back on. Temp worked down and held around 250 & slowly crep up over the next three hours to 275. I then checked them, sauced them,and back on for another 1/2 hours. They were awesome! The interesting thing is my coals lasted another 5-ish hours with the lid off. I've never had coals last that long with the lid on, let alone off.

So...any idea what I did right? This was by far my best cook. Any other time I've had a cook remotely close, I've tried to do things the same but the results were wildly different. My food is almost always good. I just want to be consistent with my cooks. One last question...are the coals supposed to burn evenly across the basket or work from one side to the other?

Again, sorry for the length of this and thank you in advance for any insights.

[Nate]

budbrew2 , welcome to the pit... Always good to have another person from Indiana in the ranks...

I just acquired a PBC and only have a couple of cooks under my belt but I can say that fzxdoc 's post on lighting a pbc may offer you some pointers... or maybe she or Jerod Broussard could jump in and give you some better tips... They are PBC super users.

Here is the link for PBC lightening:

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

Here is the link for the PBC sub forum:
https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...-barrel-cooker

[Huskee]

[USER="11135"] I can say that fzxdoc 's post on lighting a pbc may offer you some pointers... or maybe she or Jerod Broussard could jump in and give you some better tips... They are PBC super users.

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...g-temperatures

Super-users to say the least! They are PBCelebrities. (See what I did I there?)

[Nate]

Well played sir... well played

[Thunder77]

Yes, great wordplay there Huskee. Pat yourself on the back. 😎

[Jerod Broussard]

Trader Joe's hardwood briquettes

Using hardwood briquettes by B & B it ain't funny how long them dudes will burn. In fact I don't use them for rib cooks. I use Kingsford, the B & B are pretty much an overkill.

I can load the barrel down with 3-4 large briskets running 225-250 and get about 15 hours out of one load.

[RonB]

15 hours? I know Huskee likes to get loaded more often than that.

[Huskee]

RonB nah, only every 24 on goood days

[fzxdoc]

Hi, budbrew2 , nice to hear about that perfect rib cook. Now if you could only get it to rain every time you cook ribs, you'd have perfect ones every time. Just kidding. It is a great feeling, though, to nail a cook, and I'm happy for you.

Good call, BTW, to increase circulation in the garage with that fan so you weren't smoking in a semi-enclosed space where CO could build up. I smoke on a screened-in deck and always have the ceiling fan going for the same reason.

It sounds as though you're in search of the elusive consistent cook, the Holy Grail for all smokers. The PBC is no different. It likes what it likes, and our job is to find out what that is.

I've worked on getting consistent cooks ever since I got the PBC over a couple of years ago. And, for the most part, I have achieved them.

The key is to change only one parameter at a time from one cook to the next so you can see what's going on.

It's hard to tell if your cooks are consistent because you're bouncing around between lighting methods and fire management methods or if there is an inherent inconsistency in the way your PBC cooks. But, to my eye at least, one thing comes through loud and clear: you're not getting a consistent light every time on those coals.

Be sure your charcoal is dry; kept in a sealed container so it's not subject to humidity.

Perhaps it's best to start back at the beginning, with a full basket of KBB, minus 40 briquets for the chimney, and use a lighting method that works best for you. I've written up a lighting method that works best for getting consistent cooks in my PBC in the sticky topic here.

If you start with that, say, making sure the coals on the top of the pile in the chimney are ashed over before dumping them (it may take longer than 15 minutes) and see how the smoke goes, you're on to step one. If it doesn't go well, and the fire is not as hot or consistent as you would like, try opening the vent to 3/8 or just under 1/2. For my PBC, that was the key--mine was supposed to be opened to 1/2 but I run it at a generous 5/8, just under 3/4. Once that lower vent is set to the best opening, let it be. Fiddling with it during a cook doesn't change much for the better, I've found.

The key is consistency in your trials, only changing one thing each time. After 3 to 4 cooks, you should have the fire pretty well doing its consistent thing.

Another thing to point out is that the temperature of the PBC varies across the width of the cooker, from vent side to the opposite side. I always smoke with 2 smoker probes, one on the side of the vent and the other on the opposite side. Both probes are an inch or more away from the side of the barrel, hanging from the rebars at the mid-level of the meat. That way I can give all the prime PBC real estate to the meat and the meat temp does not affect my smoker temp readout.

In doing this I have found that the PBC burns hotter on the vent side first, then after a couple of hours, the hotter side is on the opposite side. Sometimes the differences in temps on the two readouts can be as much as 40 to 60 degrees, but after a while, they settle down to being pretty close to each other.

Back when I used only one smoker probe, I was tempted to fire-fiddle all the time. Now with 2 smoker probe readouts, I take the average and find that it stays pretty rock solid for the first 5-7 hours of the cook, until I have to lift the lid to foil. Once the lid is lifted and put back on, the temperature settles back, but slowly. After that it's never quite as consistent as those first half-dozen hours of beautiful blue smoke and solid temps.

Hope some of this info helps!

Kathryn