Welcome!


This is a membership forum. Guests can view 5 pages for free. To participate, please join.

[ Pitmaster Club Information | Join Now | Login | Contact Us ]

Only 4 free page views remaining.

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

First slow cook on the SnS, couple questions

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    First slow cook on the SnS, couple questions

    Pork butt is ready to go on, but almost all of my experience is at 275, and not on a kettle.
    My timing is 15 hours, but with the moisture i'm not really sure how accurate that guess is.

    Refilling the coals, how do we do that? Search isn't turning up anything for me. The site says expect 8 hours on a load of coals, so at some point I need to add a whole new load. Does it need to get down to a certain level and then fill it up entirely? The plan right now is to just fill it back up about halfway through.

    Does anyone let the water run dry? My past run-ins with water generally don't produce good bark, so I haven't run water a whole cook in a couple of years.

    Thanks, and i'm already hungry!

    #2
    _John_, Does your Weber have the Flip Up Sides on the Grill? If it does you should be able to add charcoal without removing the Butt! If it doesn't you will have to remove the Grill, Butt and All! Sweep the ashes down and add water, I would think once would be enough!
    Eat Well and Prosper! From Fargo ND, Dan

    Comment


    • _John_
      _John_ commented
      Editing a comment
      I don't have one of those grates on my 22, need a set. WSM can hold it for me.

    #3
    I'm not a Kettle / SnS expert, but here goes...
    - 225 at cooking grate level = 250+ at the top of butts when I did a couple of tests (un-scientific). Your experience may be different. I flip my butts when adding charcoal due to this temp difference.
    - My butts have been in the 12-14 hour range.
    - Refilling coals: When the temp dropped below 225 after 7 hours, I did a quick peak to see if most were burnt, and if so, used tongs to move them to 1 corner, then poured in new charcoal. The key is to not wait until they are so burnt that when moving them to the corner they are so small that all fall through.
    -Water: I did not refill after the initial quart was gone. Butts were plenty moist.

    _John_, I'll add that I've always cooked 2 butts so all that cold meat caused the charcoal to burn up a bit quicker than it would with a smaller load of meat.
    Last edited by fuzzydaddy; January 16, 2016, 05:54 PM.

    Comment


    • _John_
      _John_ commented
      Editing a comment
      Good answers, sounds good, thanks. I will shoot for 13 and have plenty of hold time if needed. Moving coals at 4AM sounds like a burn waiting to happen for me.

    • fuzzydaddy
      fuzzydaddy commented
      Editing a comment
      _John_ I just looked at my notes for my last (4) butt cooks on my 22" kettle with a Sns and on 3 cooks I did the charcoal refill at 7 hours and on 1 cook at 8 hours.

    #4
    I like water to start with. Plenty moisture plenty smoke adhesion in the kettle.

    To refill, watch when temp starts to drop. Light 15 or so briquettes to piping hot. If you afraid of ash cover your butt. I tap out any loose as with a piece of rebar, then sweep her clean. Refill with enough room for what is in the chimney.

    I cheat and use B & B briquettes so I don't refill that often.

    Comment


    • _John_
      _John_ commented
      Editing a comment
      So you are saying pretty much do the whole startup process again?

    • Jerod Broussard
      Jerod Broussard commented
      Editing a comment
      Yeah, I had to reload like that only once. If I can overfill the B & B I don't think I got to worry about it at all.

      Not sure how your pit is set up. But facing it on the handle side, I have less ash spill out of the catcher if I start on the left side.
      Last edited by Jerod Broussard; January 16, 2016, 06:19 PM.

    #5
    Looks like Willy and I are doing the same thing tonight!

    Comment


      #6
      Firing it up went smooth, spiked up to 253 and seems to be settling in. Gonna give it 20 to see if it settles then tweak if needed. I'm ready to eat this thing already!

      Comment


        #7
        Ok, so the thing spiked to 400 which didn't seem right so I hooked in my last probe (other 6 have gone down in the last year) and found that the temp is around 225, not 400.
        Mav 733 just ordered, lunch is still on schedule.

        Comment


        • fuzzydaddy
          fuzzydaddy commented
          Editing a comment
          Glad you had a spare probe! Looking forward to hearing how it's going later today....and maybe a photo or 2?

        #8
        What's the status?

        Comment


          #9
          Ok _John_ what's the verdict?

          Comment


            #10
            Unfortunately it was a fail, inedible. Remember the turkey on Christmas Vacation? Worse than that.

            I had probe issues and somewhere had to have an air leak I couldn't find in the dark, it ran either near 400 or 150. I can't say what the best temp for cooking pork butts is, but I can tell you it is not 400!

            Comment


              #11
              How on earth could it get that high?

              Comment


                #12
                Sorry to hear that. I'm confident you'll find that leak, or whatever was going on. On my 26" no lid air leaks (smoke has never come out), but on my 22" I use 3 or 4 binder clips to stop the leaks.

                Comment


                  #13
                  My lid is constantly leaking on my 22. I let the hot B & B run with it last night and the highest it got was 282. Apple wood, I cut off the money muscle for the birthday lady and sliced it up for her. Man that dude looked gooooooooooooooood.

                  Comment


                    #14
                    fuzzydaddy The wife has been doing a lot in the backyard and the girls and her friends play around there a lot, a little lid drop could have done it. I have it running right now for some chicken, we'll see how it goes.
                    The thing certainly gets hot, even at higher temps (way too high) I only used a third of a bag of charcoal (down to 2 bags!) the same amount of cook time on the big WSM takes an entire bag.

                    Comment

                    Announcement

                    Collapse
                    No announcement yet.
                    Working...
                    X
                    false
                    0
                    Guest
                    Guest
                    500
                    ["pitmaster-my-membership","login","join-pitmaster","lostpw","reset-password","special-offers","help","nojs","meat-ups","gifts","authaau-alpha","ebooklogin-start","alpha","start"]
                    false
                    false
                    {"count":0,"link":"/forum/announcements/","debug":""}
                    Yes
                    ["\/forum\/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads","\/forum\/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads\/1157845-paid-members-download-your-6-deep-dive-guide-ebooks-for-free-here","\/forum\/the-pitcast","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2019-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2020-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2021-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/bbq-news-magazine-2022-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/current-2023-issues","\/forum\/national-barbecue-news-magazine\/national-barbecue-news-magazine-aa\/current-2024-issues","\/forum\/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads\/1165909-trial-members-download-your-free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-here"]
                    /forum/free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-downloads/1165909-trial-members-download-your-free-deep-dive-guide-ebook-here