plethoraofpinatas
Knows what a fatty is.
Over the weekend I participated in a charity competition and I was having some serious problems with temperature control. Please give advice!
Normally I cook chicken and ribs on my bullet smokers (22.5in WSM and 18" ProQ) and I have my schedule figured pretty well to minimize the number of times I have to open or close the smoker. However, for this comp I was cooking pork shoulder, pork ribs, chicken quarters, ABTs, and Moinks. Due to the varying cook times for each dish and the large amount of food I served, I had to open the smoker 2-3 times more often than normal. The result of this was that i burned through twice as much charcoal (good thing I brought extra!) and had unexpected temperature spikes, one time up to 350 degrees (I normally smoke at 230-250).
After some quick searching on this board, I attribute the temp spikes to my overloading the WSMs with charcoal and getting too many coals burning at once. I started with the coal basket overflowing because I wanted to minimize the number of fuel reloads I would have to do since I would be cooking for 15+ hours. I used the Minion Method and poured ~15 pieces of ashed-over lump at one end of the basket. I used Cowboy Lump.
Can a WSM not handle 15+ hours of cooking with multiple rounds of servings? By this I mean we served pulled pork at 2pm and 5pm so I put one pork shoulder on at 2am and one at 4am. We served ribs every two hours from 1pm to 5pm, so I staggered the timings for each batch. We served ABTs and Moinks every 1.5-2 hours.
I wonder if I'm overworking this type of smoker? Thanks in advance for your advice!
Normally I cook chicken and ribs on my bullet smokers (22.5in WSM and 18" ProQ) and I have my schedule figured pretty well to minimize the number of times I have to open or close the smoker. However, for this comp I was cooking pork shoulder, pork ribs, chicken quarters, ABTs, and Moinks. Due to the varying cook times for each dish and the large amount of food I served, I had to open the smoker 2-3 times more often than normal. The result of this was that i burned through twice as much charcoal (good thing I brought extra!) and had unexpected temperature spikes, one time up to 350 degrees (I normally smoke at 230-250).
After some quick searching on this board, I attribute the temp spikes to my overloading the WSMs with charcoal and getting too many coals burning at once. I started with the coal basket overflowing because I wanted to minimize the number of fuel reloads I would have to do since I would be cooking for 15+ hours. I used the Minion Method and poured ~15 pieces of ashed-over lump at one end of the basket. I used Cowboy Lump.
Can a WSM not handle 15+ hours of cooking with multiple rounds of servings? By this I mean we served pulled pork at 2pm and 5pm so I put one pork shoulder on at 2am and one at 4am. We served ribs every two hours from 1pm to 5pm, so I staggered the timings for each batch. We served ABTs and Moinks every 1.5-2 hours.
I wonder if I'm overworking this type of smoker? Thanks in advance for your advice!
