Worked this time. Not sure what happened to the post, I don't see it any more on the Today's Posts page, had to do a search for it. Great job, I bet you'll be to bed early tonight!
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Nice job boss man! Looks great!Comment
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How do you guys add more coals to the fire without having the white smoke and stirring up a bunch of ash? Do you take the meat out and set it aside to wait a bit before adding it back on? How did you add those 15 coals at 4:30am, Spinaker, and do you think that made a difference?
Thanks in advance for your all's thoughts,
KathrynComment
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Thanks, Spinaker and HC. I've never had to add more coals but can envision a cook where that would need to happen, so I want to be prepared with the best technique.
I'm thinking that adding lit coals would be better with respect to minimizing white smoke production and getting back up to speed quickly.
I'm also wondering about ordering a second basket from PBC (if they sell them) and swapping a lit one out for the dying one when the need arises.
Once again I'm probably overthinking a relatively unlikely scenario.
Spinaker, how often do you add more coals? For this cook, you added 15 more coals at about 4 hours into the cook, as I recall. That had me a bit puzzled. Were you thinking the fire was going to die out eventually so you wanted to extend it's life early on?
And about the gloves, I bought some hella welding gloves that can, I think, open the gates of hell, no problem!
I'm good to go on that front, so thanks for the heads up.
Kathryn -
Kathryn, I love that second basket idea. That would be really easy to do.
Typically, I don't add coals to the fire. But with this cook I knew it going to take a bit longer than usual. If its over 15 lbs of meat in the PBC, I will add coals because I know it will take longer to get to my desired IT. I also think its better to be safe than sorry. I want to make sure that fire doesn't go out. I think having your fire go out on you really effects taste and texture. Whether it be from the cold burning fire just before the fire dies, or stirring up bunch of ash to re-light the fire. Plus you have far more down time when you are forced to fire back up. So, you could say I play it safe. Thats why I added some at 4:30 am. I knew it was going to go longer than 7-9 hours and given the cold winter weather conditions during the cook, I knew I would need more fuel. Probably, 2 extra hours so I added 15 briquettes. And it really made a difference, she went for about an 1/2 hour after the meat came off. So I needed that extra 15 briquettes at the end.
The PBC really reacts to COLD air. Not so much cool air, but COLD air.( below 15 F ) Its uninsulated. So it takes more energy to keep the PBC up to temp thus you need more fuel. For most of the cook the ambient temp was about 12 F with winds out of the North lat about 5 to 10 mph. So fairly chilly but good Minnesota weather!!! I love it!
I'm sure that there are others out there that would totally disagree and say they and I don't need to add anything to the fire. But thats BBQ.
Hope this helps!! Thanks for your comments/compliments!!
-SpinakerLast edited by Spinaker; December 21, 2014, 08:32 PM. -
Thanks, Spinaker for the additional insight as to why you added more coals 4 hours in to the cook. If it had been that cold here, I sure as heck wouldn't be smoking anything unless I was trailing the cord of an electric heating pad in my skivvies under about 3 layers of down garments. You're one brave guy.
It sure looks like it was a really smart move, adding those 15 briquettes. Can't argue with the results.
Kathryn
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