The Quest for Consistency... (with Temps!)

[tjguidry]

Yesterday I smoked 6 chicken halves on my PBC. Followed the lighting instructions that were posted earlier. Pit temps were in the 270-290 degrees range. Cracked the lid a bit to get the pit temp I the 320 range. After 1.5 hours the chicken was done. Perfect. During the lighting phase, when I put the meat on pit temp was +400 deg range but quickly dropped top below 300.

Today I am doing a brisket. Repeated lighting instructions just like yesterday. Put 5-6 lb brisket on. Temp was above 400 like yesterday. Pit temp stayed over 360 for 45 minutes. Had to stuff rebar holes and finally temp has come down to 250. 1.5 hours into cook. Brisket temp is now at 135.

Confused as to why I have this temp differential between these two cooks.

[Spinaker]

There are a lot of factors that can be the culprit. Wind, temps, who well the lid was put on, how hot the coals were when you dumped them in, the wind direction in relation to the dampers etc.

[tjguidry]

Ok, so with rebar holes stuffed temp finally crept down to 225. Now for no reason it shot back up to 380. Wrapped an extra temp probe and thermometer I had on the rebar. DOH! Apparently the sensor on the first thermometer must be bad because actual temp on second thermometer shows 190 and pit is not very hot. Removed rebar stuffing, cracked lid a bit. Temperature reading between the two sensors are 100 degrees apart. Still smacking my forehead on this one. I did two other cooks without a temp probe in the pit and brisket came out great. May go back to that no temp probe system. Less worries.

[Spinaker]

Keep using the Thermo. That was not causing the problem. They are there to help you. Test your thermo couples in some boiling water. They should read 212 F. Just put the tip of them in the water.

[Spinaker]

tjguidry
​​​​​​​Make sure that your not covering all of the holes on the PBC. Cover one then, if necessary, plug another one on the opposite side. Don't cover both on one side, I think this makes the fire burn unevenly. That should be all that you need to drop the temps. IF the temp doesn't drop with two opposite holes plugged, then adjust your damper. But not too much!

Another thing you can do, is to limit the time the barrel is open to the air. That is, put the lid on 2-3 mins after dumping the coals into the barrel. This will make sure your fire won't get too hot.

Additionally, when you make adjustments, make sure you give the pit time to react. Make changes is 20 min intervals.

[tjguidry]

Thanks Spinnaker. I will note those tips for next time. Things seem to have stabilized in spite of my reactions to faulty probe. 6 hours into cook meat is at 165.

[tjguidry]

After 7 hours internal meat temp reached 170. Crutched it till it reached 200 which took about an hour, set brisket wrapped in ice chest for another hour. Bark and smoke ring looked great. The flat that was near the fire was a little dry not burnt but yet still tender. As usual the closer you got to the point the better it was. Slapped a little sauce on it. Best brisket I have done so far as appearance and taste goes. I cut was back on the rub with just a light dusting. Dry brined it the night before with a light sprinkling of kosher salt. I reordered new temp probes for next time. Now I have a smoke base to build on. Appreciate all of input from everyone on this forum! Hope to someday be able to contribute.

[tjguidry]

Brisket and chicken

[EdF]

Looks to me like you have contributed, @tjguidry/ Thanks!

[tjguidry]

Thanks, tried to save you guys some brisket but it all got et.

[abandonedbrain]

OK, then. I had a chance to do some cooking in the PBC this weekend. What did I change?
1) Opened the bottom vent cover another 3/16"-ish
2) Used Soo's Donut method to light the fire, with a 25-5-5 timing

Cold temps, very humid. Dry charcoal. Lit 40 briquettes, dumped into the middle of the slightly over-full basket.

Now I don't think I did anything out of the ordinary for PBC owners... I maximized my session by throwing two 6 lb. chickens (split in half, hung on one rebar) in to start, then got a brisket flat prepped. Rubbed the chix with Simon & Garfunkel on one, PBC All-Purpose on the other. For the brisket, pulled out of cryo-vac package, rubbed with light olive oil coating, then liberally dosed it with PBC Beef & Game rub. Flat was a 5 lb. choice from Costco (hey, it was cheap, I've never done brisket, and I was guided above to practice on cheap meats! That was pretty cheap beef; even flank was pricier!).

Again, my temps were all over the place, but here's what I saw:

1) As I said, very humid out all day. It ended up raining about midnight finally; it was just hangin' in the cold Michigan air.

2) Briquettes weren't getting hot in the chimney at the start. 25 minutes just to see about 30% white on the top-most ones. (I did tap them clear before adding to the basket, though.)

3) Once the lid was ready to go on, I threw a small (1.5" square-ish) lump of hickory on the hot coals, just so I could get a good billowing smoke rolling out of the PBC. That was when I noticed smoke billowing out of every inch of the lid! Even the dang horseshoe handle had smoke coming out of one screw! So not a great fit. I pounded the lid down, which helped, but every time I picked the lid up to do something I had to pound it back on. I ended up stacking a bunch of heavy rocks on it, which REALLY helped. Time, I think, to finally look at a gasket, as my grease coating is fairly well built up...

4) With the vent opened further, the first three hours of the cook session I was able to hold my temps around 275F, up from 240-ish. Hey, great! And that was with unloading the chicken and loading the brisket (which went in about 30 minutes into the start of cooking, double-hooked and hung on the opposite rebar from the chix).

5) After about 3 hours, the temps started to slowly slide. For 30 minutes, 275 down to 270. Then the next 30 minutes went from 270 to 255. I let it roll; the next 30-40 minutes dropped down to 235. That was it; I cracked the lid for 20 minutes to raise it back up to 280, then lid-on it climbed to 310. Finally started to lower again. From that point, I had to work to keep it above 240F.

6) I had to start adding briquettes at about 6.5 hours, cold on hot. From there, I gave up on tracking temps.

7) From about 9 hours, I could no longer keep adding briqs, as there was far too much ash under the basket to allow the existing hot ones to light the cold. I was stabbing around with a rebar trying to clear it, but it was a lost cause. I brought the brisket inside and wrapped it in foil at 182F internal, no liquid, and put it in my 285F oven to get it to 204F internal, finally probe-soft-ish. Immediately wrapped it in two bath towels and into a small cooler for about 1.5 hours. Total time for 5 lbs, no wrap until well after the TWO stalls (one at 150F internal, one at 170F internal): 11 hours.

So I still have issues holding a temp after 2.5-3 hours, and the lid really does need a gasket. Opening the vent got those initial temps up above 270F, which is a huge improvement! And doing Soo's Donut and a 25-5-5 kept the initial temp spike I normally see go over 400F down to a more respectable 310-320F tops, also a huge improvement.

But dammit, I made brisket! Now my white whale is a full packer (Costco did have some in Prime, but I was able to talk myself down). I think that'll wait until later this spring or first part of summer, so I'm not fighting cold temps AND humidity.

Thanks again, all. For your viewing pleasure...

[tjguidry]

Nice looking brisket.

[fzxdoc]

Nice job! Thanks for the details. Sounds like you're mastering your PBC temps well. Once you get that gasket on, you may see more steady PBC temps for longer periods of time. Best wishes on great cooks to come!
Kathryn

[EdF]

Very fine looking!

[Allison]

abandonedbrain Thanks for starting this thread and keeping the rest of us apprised of your progress. Excellent report. You are clearly well on your way to mastering this.

[lschweig]

Last year I finally discovered that my PBC barrel was out of round by a fair amount causing the lid to ride up on one edge and thus causing leakage. I would suggest you measure your barrel diameter in several places to determine if you have this issue. I fixed mine easily with bar clamps, but I am sure that PBC would have shipped me a new barrel if I asked them to.

Since correcting that issue the seal just keeps getting better and better as the gunk builds up at that junction.

[Spinaker]

Yep. That gunk is the stuff!!!!! Good call on the bar clamps.

[abandonedbrain]

Thanks, I'll do that on a dry day here shortly.

[hogdog6]

Nice looking brisket. Gotta love the PBC smoke ring. 👍

[abandonedbrain]

Thanks. Yep, it definitely makes that part easy! Although I wasn't impressed with the Beef & Game Rub; way too salty for my tastes. All-Purpose is a fave for chicken, though.

[hogdog6]

I'm with you on the beef and game rub, it's wayyyyyy to salty!

[tjguidry]

OK, Did another brisket this weekend. Used the lighting method (15-10-10) put brisket on with pit temp >400 Deg. I wanted to see what would happen without touching it. After 1 hour the pit temp was down to 300 deg. Another hour and the pit temp gradually dropped from 300 down to 225 and then rode from 220 to 250 for the next six hours. Brisket came out great and I now know that I don't need to worry so much about maintaining pit temp because the PBC does it very well on its own. (BTW something I learned along the way is I now only buy Choice packers, but I pick the flimsiest one. If I pick it up in the middle and it is stiff I pass on it but if is folds over like a wet rag that is the one to get.

[TroyOHchatter]

It all sounds like some of you are making this way too complicated. From three years of PBC ownership, what I am listing are my observations.

-BAD CHARCOAL: This will probably start a flame war (no pun intended) but I have bought bad charcoal from both Lowes and Home Depot on their big "2 fer $10"days (I am located in Ohio) and in both cases the stuff has amounted to moisture laden garbage. If I use this stuff the fire will go out in less than 3 hours regardless of how small the load I have cooking. Meijer (regional WalMart competitor) doesn't order mass amounts and stores it in the back of the store, in A/C dry comfort. With good Kingsford, at sea level, using the lighter fluid method, 15 minutes should have the coals almost greyed over. From that point, you better get the meat on and lid on quickly. 17 minutes will have a really hot fire. When he says 15 minutes at sea level, he means lid on in 15 minutes.

-If the inlet is open too far and yet not "Super far" you will end up with the problems being discussed here. I have tested this myself, in an area where 1/4 is called for, I cracked it to almost half and duplicated exactly what is being discussed here. This happened while I was chasing the same issues and, as I found out, it was the charcoal!

-Throw your thermometer in the trash and trust the PBC. Start following the lighter fluid lighting method. Myron Mixon uses lighter fluid all the time. At competitions, I can assure you, no one is running about with 10 chimneys. Dump, drench, drop, and light. Works fine. Just ensure you don't let it go beyond the time listed in the instructions. At sea level, it's 15 minutes. Not 17, not 16, but 15!

-Reaffirmation of item 1. Test heat with a hand on top of the unit. Again, toss the thermometer. If you want to obsess over temp, go get a stick burner. If the lid is not hot but rather just luke warm to the touch and you have a big load of meat or cold temps, crack the lid. If it's warm (not hot) to the touch and you have a small cook and warm temps, you have a bad batch of charcoal PERIOD. It can be no other issue.

Not to beat it like a rented mule, but I even called the folks at PBC and they agree and have seen this issue before.

No offense to anyone, my apologies if it is, and I wish you all the best.