Astoundingly good temp control at 250° on a PBC + Cyber Cloud

[AZ Fogey]

Smoked a rack of spareribs yesterday afternoon. They were rubbed with Killer Hogs AP and BBQ Rub Hot. In ambient temp of 103°, I set up the BBQ Guru Cyber Cloud controller on the PBC and set pit temp to 250°. Never tried to cook that low on the PBC before.

I've found that on both the PBC and especially on a PK-360, if the pit probe is just left hanging in ambient air, the Pit Viper fan starts up, and when I light the charcoal chimney on the grate in the cooker, the extra air flow stokes the fire in the chimney and the coals get lit a lot faster.

I had set up the charcoal basket with an Arbor Fabricating 141 Minion Starter Basket placed in the center of the basket under the handle with KBB stacked all around it. This was the first time I'd used the Minion Basket. The PBC charcoal chimney was filled with mostly used KBB but also with some Fogo lump salvaged from previous cooks. That amount of briquettes fit nicely into the Minion basket. With the lit coals and small chunks of apple and pecan dumped in, I put in the rebars and closed the lid, waited about 15 minutes for the pit temp to stabilize, then hung the ribs.

As you can see from the graph, the Cyber Cloud did an outstanding job of temperature stabilization.

After a little over 2 hours, the ribs had a beautiful mahogany color and there was some meat pull-back from the bones. I pulled them and wrapped them in aluminum foil after applying some Parkay, brown sugar and a very little honey. Put the grate in the cooker and cooked the ribs wrapped for another hour. When I unwrapped them they passed the bend test so I sauced them using KosmosQ OP X1 (it's a wonderful BBQ sauce), and put them back on the grate for another half hour and they were done. Lastly, I put the silicone plug back into the PBC inlet adaptor.

The ribs tasted great. My wife went back for thirds and even I couldn't find anything to nitpick about.







This morning when I removed the charcoal basket to salvage any viable briquettes I was amazed at how little fuel have been used for the almost 4 hours cook. The Pit Viper fan inlet was around the 6 o'clock position of the basket. An unscientific guess would be that this cook could have gone on for another 8 hours longer. The salvaged charcoal that's in the Minion basket hasn't even been reduced to ash which I really don't understand.

Would appreciate hearing from those of you who are more knowledgeable about burn patterns and burn times than I am. I was very impressed with the controlled burn using the Minion Basket.

[mountainsmoker]

Very impressive cook. Ribs look delicious and nice and tender. The Cyber Cloud certainly did its job.

[RonB]

Congrats on a great cook. And that graph looks great too.

[Polarbear777]

Very nice!

[AZ Fogey]

Thanks Polarbear777. The only reason I can use the Cyber Cloud on the PK-360 was because you pioneered the way and told me how to hook it up.

[Bobmcgahan]

This is the first I’ve read of the minion starter basket. Is the point that it just controls the burn better? Would you need the Cyber Cloud at all with the minion?

[AZ Fogey]

The only way to find that out is to try it. I appears to work well if trying to cook at temps below the normal PBC range.

[fzxdoc]

That's an interesting 4 hour burn pattern. I'm guessing that the fan and the wood chunks encouraged the burn pattern to move in their direction and stay there.

What does the burn pattern look like, usually, in the PBC basket with the fan controller--does the early fire also migrate preferentially toward the fan?

Was the temp more stable this time with the controller compared to other controller cooks on the PBC?

Not sure what the advantage a minion basket has over the coffee can (Harry Soo) method that I sometimes use. At least it's not very expensive as BBQ toys go.

Kathryn

[Nate]

I don’t understand why folks feel they have to control PBC temps and especially why they try to keep it controlled to low and slow temps.

The thing is designed to run inside a higher temp range with some temp swings.

kudos though for the experiment and all.

[fzxdoc]

I tend to agree Nate . It's fun to let the PBC run wild and free at the higher temps for which it was designed. I'm not a fan of 225° smoking on it or my other smokers either.

It's interesting that AZ Fogey set his controller to 250° and it clocked in at an average of 243°, apparently.

Kathryn

[AZ Fogey]

Kathryn, the pit number of 242.9 reflects the last number read when the cook recording stopped after I took the ribs off, not the average temp and you can see the dip below the rest of the pit temp line. I'd be leary of doing 225° cooks in a PBC as that's way below its design range, but I sure can't argue with the results at 250°.

[AZ Fogey]

@faxdoc The burn pattern always biases toward the fan but not to the extent of this cook, and a lot more coals get lit, usually half or a little more. I think the temp control on this cook was the most stable I've experienced yet. Not by a whole lot, but it's there. I haven't seen Harry Soo's video on that but Ry on Cooking with Ry also uses a coffee can but he pulls it out after dumping the chimney which I think would allow for a more even in to out burn pattern. This Minion Basket is made of stainless steel and can be left in place. In fact I think it would be very difficult to remove because it fits under the charcoal basket handle, not over it, is completely surrounded by charcoal, and there's not much clearance between its top and the handle. It appears that the Minion Basket works if trying to cook low and slow, and for long cooks. Also everything we're talking about is perhaps not what would happen at all without the presence of the controller and fan.

This sounds like a job for Polarbear007 , LOL.

[fzxdoc]

Yes, the coffee can is always removed just before the hot coals are poured in the vacated area.

Thanks for the additional information about your cook and burn patterns.

Kathryn