First cooking on new cooker

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kenny

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This past Friday my brother (Charlie) and I cooked on our new home built cooker. I wont go so as far to say it was a diaster, but it was close. We leared a lot about reverse flow cookers. Our new rig is a offset firebox, reverse flow. Our old cooker is a single pass offset firebox. We use to cook at temps in the 250-275 degree range. With the new cooker our ribs were done in 3 hours, (we usually go 5 hours) we had butts done in 8 hours, (normal cooking time is 12-16 hours). Any suggestions would be appreciated. With reverse flow cookers what are expected cooking temps and times.:confused: More pictures to come.
 

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If you're sure that the temperature, at cooking grate level, was equal to your old cooker, then the difference could be the convection (increased air flow) of your reverse flow design. Just my .02.
 
I would suggest double checking your temps at grate level where your food is. You say it was a disaster, why? Was the food not good? I would love for my ribs to be done in 3 hours! Every cooker cooks differently, the fun part is learning them.
 
I recently rebuilt my 5' offset as a reverse flow. Things definitely cook alot quicker. Ive noticed that trimmed spares take about 4.5-5 hours at 225-240 if i foil em for a while left unfoiled they take a little longer. I havent done any bigger cuts of meat in it lately cause im lazy and use my WSM for my briskets or butts. but this summer i will be doing some over nighters just to enjoy the weather. IT will take ya some time to get used to it. It also amazes me at the reduced amount of fuel i have to use. i used 10 lbs of RO lump and about 9-10 logs for a 6 hour cook. id used to burn double that amount.
 
this may be dumb, but what is reverse flow? :?:
 
Thanks

Thanks for the replies. I believe the temp is the difference. The old smoker was much larger, with more wall area. The more wall area, the more heat loss? It wasnt that the Butts, chicken, and ribs were bad, it just surprised us how fast they cooked. Shouls have payed closer attention. We did notice also that we used much less wood, thats always a good thing.
 
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