PBC cook #2/Brisket pRon and lots of questions

OK Brethren..here was my 2nd experience.
As with my first cook, lit everything up as directed, coals all ready to go at 20 minutes, just as advertised.
Prepped the brisket, trimmed and seasoned with the Pit Barrel Beef and Game rub while the coals were starting.
The brisket is a small one around 7.5 pounds trimmed, outside temp at about 42*F, light breeze, rigged up a block to protect the air intake.

Hung the brisket at 12:20 and tossed on the lid, also had the ET-732 set up from the start to monitor the pit and meat. The pit probe was hung right next to the brisket about a third of the way down from the top on a hook with foil.


Not sure if you can see it in the pic's but the probe is there.
And here is a table of how it progressed from there.
Time
PBC temp
Meat IT
12:25
360 pit
41 meat IT
12:50
410 pit
73 meat IT
1:25
424 Pit
138 Meat IT

Initial temps started high, I was hoping that once the meat was in the cooker and all buttoned up that the temp would drop as others have reported, as you can see, that was not the case. At the 1:25 mark I blocked the air intake, the PBC temp began dropping right away.
1:35
356 Pit
160 Meat IT

Brisket pulled and wrapped and then placed on grate in PBC, closed it up and;
1:55
482 Pit
156 Meat IT

I had the lid off the PBC while I wrapped, so I’m guessing that is why the temp went up so much. Cook progressed as follows, intake still covered;
2:25
307 Pit
181 Meat IT
2:55
244 Pit
203 Meat IT
3:00
236 Pit
205 Meat IT
3:25
205 Pit
210 Meat IT

Probed the brisket for tenderness, did not probe like butter, opened up the air intake, cook continued.
3:55
297 Pit
212 Meat IT

Brisket probed tender here, pulled from cooker and placed in cooler to rest for 2-3 hours.
I expected the Brisket to be pretty dark, I did not open the PBC to peak, I let the temps run just as you see above until I pulled and wrapped. Here is how it looked when I took it off at 1:35:

As you can see, a little dark at the one corner, otherwise very nice color.

I will post a pic or two of the finished product when I slice it up. I don't expect much of a smoke ring with the cook progressing so rapidly. I did put in some hickory and mesquite.

Probably way more than any of you wanted to know, just passing it along for everyones FYI.

I'm not sure if anyone else is having these issues with temp control on their PBC, but I would love to get your ideas and thoughts on this.

I will probably call Noah tomorrow to get his thoughts.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to make sure you all get all the info.

KC

Sorry all, I had this all layed out in a table format in word, didn't copy and paste as expected, so probably hard to follow.

landarc said:

Do you have the vent pointed into the wind?

BTW, that looks like a pretty nice color on that brisket. I prefer it a little darker, but, man, I wouldn't hesitate to put that on the table.

Click to expand...

Nope, the vent was not pointed toward the wind, I even set up a block of sorts, so the wind would not have an affect.

Update

In spite of all the temp issues, the brisket came out wonderful! Not much of a smoke ring as I expected, but the smoke FLAVOR was great. The brisket was moist, tender and very tasty. for a first attempt and the other issues involved, I was pleasantly surprised.











Thanks for looking, and I will get back to you all, as far as what Noah has to say about the temp control issues.

KC

flyingbassman5 said:

My take is this...don't light it as directed. You are letting the fire set up WAYY too hot to start off. Fill the basket, take 10 briquettes out and light in a chimney. When they are lit and stop putting off smoke (just heat) dump them back into the center of the basket. Place the basket back into the drum and let it settle in and start rolling sweet blue. Once that happens, put the meat on and let it go.

I get MUCH better cooking temps when I do this sort of minion type burn. Just my $.02

Click to expand...

That is one of the options I was considering, the other option was to readjust the intake valve. But I initially wanted a second try with everything factory set........the PBC is pretty much advertised as set it and forget it to at least some extent. I had similar issues with the first cook, so I'll see what Noah or the PBC folks have to say about the temp issues.

KC

caliking said:

That looks like a mighty fine brisket to me. Did that take about 3.5hrs at those temps until it probed tender? Was it a flat or a small packer?

Also, I'm curious if you noted any difference between hanging first then laying on a rack vs. other briskets that have laid flat on a rack from the get go?

Click to expand...

It was a small packer, and yes, about 3.5 hours with a 2.5 hour rest in the cooler, really turned out good, very tasty. It was my first brisket so I can't really address the difference between the hanging and lying on the grill.

Will work for bbq said:

Nice looking brisket. Did you have both re-bars installed? If you only used 1 then the added open area of the other re-bar would cause it to draft more.

Click to expand...

Both rebars were in place.

Thanks all, I appreciate all the responses.

My goal for these first two cooks was to see if the PBC cooked as advertised, or perhaps I should say how I "thought" it was advertised.

First, from the box, then the set-up, and firing it up, all lived up to what I had been reading in all the reviews, Very Quick, Very easy, bing, bang, boom!

Next, and I think this is where I got a little side tracked, was that I was expecting it to run at about the 275 range +/_ 25*.

This morning I spent quite a bit of time looking at the PBC website, as well as searching through many of the threads on this site about the PBC, and I don't find that bit of info anywhere. It seems that this is where a lot of the brethren that have posted about it have said their PBC "settled", and i jumped to the conclusion that that is how it was supposed to work.

My mistake.

So now it is a simple matter of either using the method flyingbassman suggests, which is what I will try next (thank you)....or......adjusting the intake.......or.......adjusting the amount of fuel or a variation of the three to get it to where I like it.

Which as far as I'm concerned this is great, just gives me another reason to keep firing it up, lol:wink:.

Thanks again all.

KC