Sunday's Chicken

[Steve B]

So Sundays cook started out messed up when one of my temp probes took a dump. Anyway I started the chimney of coals @ 3:40. Got pit temp up to aprox 330 and steady by 5:15. Bird went on. At 6:00 pm temps still holding steady. By 7:00 temps started falling 270-250 by 7:30 I thought the bird should have been done but internal temps were staying at 155 and the temps were jumping all over the place with every little adjustment. I'm talking 1/8" movements on vent. I needed to get my temps up to crisp this sucker. I wound up having to add 2 full splits. To get the fire hot again. By the way I was using charcoal briquettes, didn't want to have too much smoke flavor for this cook. After all said and done 20 min. later the birds temp reached 165. And crisped up pretty well. Is it possible for the chicken to have hit a stall???? Because it held @ 155 for about 45 minutes. And I was puzzled as to why the temps went crazy. Any input here?? Would love to hear any feedback. Thanks all.

Lets keep the the smoke coming.

[Jerod Broussard]

Chicken has a LOT of water to keep temps from climbing. The whole reason meat has such a low thermal diffusivity is its water content.

[Steve B]

So you are saying it probably had its own stall??

[Jerod Broussard]

Steve B yes to the stall. But here is the thing, if you are pushing things along at a certain temp, and you no longer maintain that, you lucky if the temps don't drop. Simply flipping a brisket in the kettle and exposing the flat side, will cause the internal temp to drop approx. 20 degrees.

[fzxdoc]

Interesting, Jerod Broussard , about the drop in temp when flipping a brisket. Good to know. Plus I didn't think that chickens could hit a stall, but then there's no reason why they wouldn't. I guess for some cooks the stall goes away so quickly that I don't notice. Sure explains what happens when I load my PBC with chickens and sausages, though. Thanks!

Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

Uh, that would be thermal diffusivity that you'd have to use in a sentence, Jon Solberg . As in, for me at least, "I'd weigh less if my thermal diffusivity was a bit higher." I didn't realize that I had so much in common with chickens and other meats, Jerod Broussard. Just kidding. I could use a good stall once in a while to get rid of the 5 lbs that I routinely add and subtract depending on my meat smoking schedule. And the libations that go with.

[fzxdoc]

Steve B , it depends on where you type your callouts. When typing a main post, when you type @ and the exact membername, you'll see a dropdown box and you can select the name there. As you're typing your post, it will appear in blue, and when you post, it will appear in red.

If you're typing in the Comments section, you don't get a dropdown box nor does your callout appear in blue. It does appear in red when you post.

On the iPad, when you're typing a main post (not a comment), and choose the dropdown callout list, the callout appears in blue while you're typing but for some reason jumps to the front of the post. It appears in red when you post.

And finally, some callouts don't appear in red if you put a punctuation mark right next to them. I always leave a space if I need to have a punctuation mark follow a callout. Also, if you have placed a callout in a Comment and have to edit the Comment, the callout does not work. You have to reenter it before Saving your edited Comment.

HTH,
Kathryn

[Steve B]

Thanks @fxydoc thats one of the great things about the pit there are so many people that are willing to help.

[Steve B]

Oops got your name wrong fzxdoc sorry

[Jerod Broussard]

1. If you had an insulated fire box it would be a lot easier to bust out some high temps

2. Try to get some hardwood briquettes

They burn HOT and LONG.

[Steve B]

I actually used stubs hardwood briquettes. As you should know with an LSG I would loose my grill grate on the fire box. I can't give that up.

[Jerod Broussard]

Guest that is odd. The B & B Hardwoods briquettes I use will almost double what I get out of KBB.

I can see why some folks dig that open top. I have two kettles that can grill. The efficiency of an insulated is too hard to pass up, somewhat, at $595 it is a tack on!

[Reds Fan 5]

SteveB, what were the weather conditions? Wind can wreak havoc with cooker temps. Did you use lit and unlit coals? I get some fluctuation as the unlit coals ignite and start to burn. They are usually minor fluctuations but it does appear the temp is jumping all over the place. This may sound silly but any chance the probe wasn't connected tightly to the thermometer?

[Steve B]

The weather conditions were pretty good 88 degrees very little wind and If you see my pics I did a minion type of burn. So not sure why the temps went wacko after 2 1/2--3 hrs. The temps started to go crazy before I added any more coals and wood. As far as the probe it's junk trust me.

[Reds Fan 5]

Wonder if you just have a bad probe and were getting weird/inaccurate readings. Sounds like the chicken was good. It looks good. And as I've noted on another thread, spatchcocking is a game-changer for chicken cooks.

[Steve B]

I also have a second digital thermometer that read correctly. I know it is a bad probe. The grate probe is the one that was jumping not quickly, but a steady climb and decline. I have done a few spatchcock chickens before Which is why I was puzzled about the "stall " if that's what it was