What am I doing wrong?

[SmokinLearner]

Hi all... I am very new to BBQing and thats why I am always learning about smoking meats. I am one of those that never really cooked before I reached the soon-to-be ripe old age of retirement and could finally give my wife a break from her daily chore for us. First off, let me say this web site is fascinating and I have learned so much just by reading. But when it comes to "doing" I have plenty of experience to gain before I am comfortable with the processes of BBQing great meals. So please have extreme patience for this ol' soul.. Before I get to what is going wrong.. let me start with what is going right.
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stuffed sweet potatoes... I cannot recall who posted this recipe, but OMG, this is the best thing to have ever happened to sweet potatoes. My wife cooks these for us as I cook the meat on the grill and she does a great job!! The italian sausage just seems to go so well with what I put on the grill. I don’t know how I found it on this site and I cannot seem to find the recipe again to give proper credit to the person who placed the recipe. So if someone can respond in this thread with the user would be fantastic!!
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Now for what has gone wrong…….
My first attempt was the last meal ribs utilizing St. Louis style ribs. The recipe is NOT wrong, it is me.
I am using a Pit Boss pellet grill which was like a foreign language to me when I started it up the first time. I relied on the manufacturer to have those control settings correct. Was I ever wrong!!.. Those poor ribs never had a chance with my culinary experience on a grill. They turned out to be the epitome of char-burned ribs..
Not to give up, I visited the thermopen web sight. I am already sorry Meathead, that I did not use the link on this sight to get to thermopen because I had no idea at the time that this sight benefits when we jump from this sight to a purchasing sight. I apologize profusely!!
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So I upgraded my Pit Boss grill to include the thermopen SMOKE system along with a MK4 thermometer. I am now armed and ready for round two on those beautiful St. Louis style ribs. Utilizing the thermopen Smoke temp system, I learned very quickly about the "P" mode for wood pellet grills. On an hourly basis I would toggle between the "P" modes of the pellet grill to try and stay at the 225F temp (+/- 20F degrees). Maintaining a constant 225 is an effort in futility on a wood pellet grill. But alas, that is what I have so that is what I must continue to learn on. As those with pellet stoves already realize, 225F on the control panel can mean anything between 200F-240F, while the "P" mode only comes as close as 200F-210F when first starting the grill. Those of you on other systems fill free to chime in and give me the raspberries and what I should probably be migrating to in the future. But I need to keep my next grill under $400 or it will never happen. Sorry.
So this second foray into the Last-meal-ribs was educational. I managed to keep the temp between 200F-240F the whole time. Unfortunately, this single rack of ribs took over 16 hours (well past the recommended time) to pass the bend test. But OMG were they delicious!!
Why so much time?? What am I doing wrong?
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On to the next…
My next foray into this great taste-bud pleasing experience involved the pork butt roast.
I trimmed off a lot of fat and then proceeded to take the roast and manipulate it into a circular piece of meat as I tied it up. It started out as a 10 pound butt and I cut it near the boney part to end up with a 4.5 pound and 3 pound after trimming off all the fat. The meat probe went into the 4.5 pound and a second meat probe went into the 3 pound. The SMOKE temp controller always had one of the meat probes plugged in as well as always having the internal temp probe of the Pit Boss plugged in. When I wanted to know which piece of meat was at a temp, I would just switch out the meat temp probe plugged into the meat side of the SMOKE controller. Once again, after nearly 14 hours the meat temps were only reading 170F-175F and the meat was pulled in order to eat prior to 9:00 pm. The meat was exquisite but the temp was a long ways from where the pull-temp should have been as mentioned on the web site.
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Trial number 4..
Ok, I finally took notice of all the pictures and have included one for this last foray into my world of BBQing. This session was Beef Short Ribs. I could not find a butcher who did not freeze their meat except for one and unfortunately they cut both sides of the silver skin (membrane) which made the meat fall apart as I tried to rub the two-bone ribs with this site’s Beef Rub! 24 hours earlier, I dry brined with Morten’s Kosher salt. When I pulled the ribs out of the fridge prior to placing the Beef Rub on, they looked just marvelous even though they were now equivalent to one-bone ribs as the image depicts.
So, once again, after 14 hours, my meat temp read only 181F which is a long way from 203F as Meathead suggests. Again, I had to pull the meat early in order to eat supper at an appropriate time.
PLEASE, WHAT AM I DOING WRONG????

[Spinaker]

Well first of all, Welcome to the wonderful world of BBQ!!! And congrats on your retirement!

I don't own a pellet grill, but one thing I can tell you is not to worry about exact temps, especially when you are starting out. When a Pellet Grill is running, think of it as your oven. The thermostat will keep the cooking chamber at an average temp. Not an exact temp. So the fire and delivery system is working ON/OFF ON/OFF much like your oven inside. If you were to take your SMOKE and put it in your oven inside; you would see the same result. A gradual climb, followed by a gradual decline in temp, with average temp at the setting you selected. (in theory) So, for you to set your smoker at 225 F and seeing it cycle between 200 F and 240F is not a big deal. Let that go. Unless it get to 75 degrees or more.
Secondly, Make sure your going all the way to 202 F. You can speed this up by wrapping at 165 F, when the meat hits the "STALL". The Stall is when Surface evaporation is causing the meat temp to stall out. The internal temp can sit like that for hours. Much like when you sweat on a hot summer day. Now there are two ways to beat the stall, Wrapping (Texas crutch) and raising the temp of the cooker to 275 F to 300 F. For the Texas crutch, simply wrap in heavy duty foil and place the meat back on the grill. The second option, is it raise your temp to power through the Stall. Both work just fine. I like to let my stuff go all the way with out wrapping but if your in a hurry raise your temp to 275 F. This will cook faster and you will achieve better bark. This is the temp that I usually cook at the whole time. I rarely ever cook below 250 F. The Texas crutch is the ultimate way to get it through the stall. So if your really in a pinch, wrap it up!

And is you want the best smoker on the market for under $300. Look no further than the Pit Barrel Cooker.

https://www.pitbarrelcooker.com

I hope this helps. Let us know of any other questions that you may have! Welcome to the PIT!!

(And I just noticed. Your from MN. I live down in Minnetonka. We are doing a MN meet up in April. We would love to have you join us! PM me for details!! )

[Jeff_Carley]

PBC all the way!! Easy and well worth more than the listing price!

[tbob4]

Spinaker did a fantastic job of explaining things. I will tackle only the St. Louis ribs. 16 hours is double my longest rib cook and I am a low and slow cooker. You will read all sorts of advice here about the right temp to cook things. Nobody is wrong. Temps and times correlate - the higher the temp the shorter the cook time. Even at temps between 210 and 225 I have never gone beyond 8 hours. Six hours is my normal cook time at 225. So I am guessing that there still may be an issue with your temps even with the Smoke thermometer. I do wrap the ribs after 3 hours in foil and leave the wrap on for 1 or two hours depending on whether my eaters want fall of the bone ribs or not. Try moving the Smoke thermo to different positions in your smoker and see if there is significant heat loss from one place to another. I would follow Spinaker's advice and up the temps of your cooks and see what your Smoke says. Finally, I would take Spinaker up on the meet up date in April. He and all of the other MN folks who post here know what there doing. You will never get a better education than that, I am sure. Take a notepad with you if you do and promise to post photos.

[Spinaker]

We could use a No Cal special guest, my friend.

[tbob4]

Spinaker - would love to but my boy is getting married in NOLA in May so I will be out of commission.

[Spinaker]

Shucks! That's a pretty damn good excuse though! Congrats!! tbob4

[Thunder77]

Welcome to the Pit! One thing that comes to mind is where are you putting your pit temp probe? You need it at least two inches away from your meat, because there is a bubble of cool air next to the meat which will give you erroneous temp readings.

[BigCountryQ]

I agree with everything that's been stated so far by Spinaker tbob4 and Thunder77 . All 3 of these guys know what they're talking about. As a rule of thumb, I always try to plan my cooks with plenty of time to cook and then rest. It becomes an art, figuring out how your cooker works and performs for you. Every cut of meat is different and many times, cooking times can vary between the same types of meat. The top 3 things I would take out of this would be 1. Raise your temps a bit 2. Wrap at the stall (read more about it here) 3. Allow plenty of time. Happy cooking and welcome to the Pit!

[customtrim]

For me starting out on doing ribs i used the simple 3 2 1 method i think it is a relatively easy way to learn on doing sl ribs plus gives you a chance to monitor your cook and not worrying about meat temps
Pork butts kind of same thing is i would wrap when they first hit the stall and would leave it wrapped till 203, i believe that these easy simple processes help give you a better understanding on how your cooker works and how meat reacts, from there it is a little easier to adjust to more complicated styles like going naked for the full cook and judging when the meat is done. Dont get frustrated trust your instincts have fun in the end it will all work out and pretty soon the neighborhood will be gathering at your house wanting your food

[Mosca]

To the point,

There is no way these cooks should be taking so long. Start by setting your goal at 250 instead of 225. 250 is plenty low. As others have said, try putting your probe in a different spot. For pork butts, you can go all they way to 300, and I know someone who does them at 325. They taste great.

I don't know anything about pellet grills. Ribs take about 5 hours on my Weber kettle, same on my kamado.

If you're looking to replace the pellet grill, everyone seems to like the PBC and the Weber kettle. Both provide superior results at a very affordable price point.

[DeusDingo]

i would say the biggest harm the recipes on this site do is the myth that it HAS TO BE 225 AND NEVER STRAY AND NEVER ANY MORE OR ANY LESS. everyone, when they start out, pulls their hair out trying to reach this pointless goal. meathead really needs a few disclaimers that 225 is good but sometimes you need to go to 250 or 270 and that is just fine and it won't hurt a thing.

SmokinLearner you are doing fine. you are learning your cooker. you, like me, won't reach meathead's weird metric of finishing a pork but in 12 hours at 225. and that is fine. you just need to up the temps, wrap when you stall, and sit back and enjoy the ride because this is a leisure sport, it isn't meant to make you stressed out. if you come up with a system that works for you, makes delicious food, and you have fun, then you aren't doing anything wrong.

[fuzzydaddy]

As others have said, I think your air temps are likely the issue. To measure the air (pit) temp with the Smoke make sure you're using the air probe in the grate clip as pictured below, positioned on the cooking grate where your meat is, about 2-3" horizontally from the meat, and the probe is not touching any metal in your cooker.

Welcome and we'd love to get an intro from you over in the Introduce Yourself channel when you get a minute!

[DWCowles]

I really don't think cooking at 225 F has anything to do with ribs taking 16 hrs folks. I cook them at 225 F all the time and the longest has been 7 hrs.

[Spinaker]

In the Lang or in the KJ?

[Breadhead]

Same here on my Kamado... ribs from Costco are about 3 pounds per rack. At 225° unwrapped they take about 7 hours. Skinny ribs take 4 to 5 hours max.

[DWCowles]

In any of the cookers I have Spinaker except the PBC

[GadjetGriller]

SmokinLearner Be happy that your Pellet Grill fluctuates. My old GMG was so precise that once at temp it would only drop the right amount of Pellets to keep at the correct temp. The pellets would be consumed by the fire so fast they had no time to smolder and give off smoke. Therefore that added layer of flavor was not present in the food. Pellet companies have figured this out and now allow their temps to fluctuate thereby letting the pellets smolder before being consumed, by fire. The "P" mode sounds like their version of Smoke setting. usually around 180 degree GMG wanted its users to set to 180 for at least the 1st couple of hours and if you were not in a hurry they suggested going all the way to 160 (the stall on briskets) then upping the temp to 225 or 250. Pellet Grills have evolved a lot since I got mine back in the day. They are good little multitaskers today. Good luck with practice I'm sure you will get better (We are our own worse critics!)

[SmokinLearner]

thank you all for your responses. BigCountryQ I read the link you provided and it was a great read. I can see by reading all your responses that I just need to relax, don't worry, and just enjoy this new world of BBQ. So much to learn but that is part of the fun also. I am already looking forward to my next BBQ day. Thanks again for all your kind words!!

[frijolefrito]

So I have a traeger smoker and it's a pellet one. The degrees do vary but I've never had it be an issue. I may be repeating info you've gotten but it's easier for me to explain my process.

I brine or marinade everything I smoke. I use a wireless 2 probe combo like shown above. I like 225-250 temp cooking times on things that are slow cooked. That's my cooking no fail.

So your journey just have to say WOW. I looked at the reviews and some people were having your same problem. You think it might be your smoker? Maybe you have to calibrate something or talk to the customer support. On my traeger I put weights on the handle to make sure it seals better. I mean I can only speak for the traeger but I haven't had this problem. My friend says he loves the rek tech. I think it's the smoker not you.

[SmokinLearner]

thank you @frijolefrito
I think I will be raising my temp up so that the low swing is nearer to 220 instead of 200. that would put the high swing up around 245-250 where i measure the internal temp. I may be smokin too low.