question on stubbs

[Noob]

So i read great reviews on Stubbs vs Original KF so i got some last night for today's butt cook. After lighting a full chimeny and laying them in a bed of unlit coals and applewood i let the cooker come up to temp (275°F on the center of the offset). My left side analog closest to the firebox read 325°F and the right side analog read 250°F so i was happy with the tempz and the butt went in. So at 30 min in with both intake and exhaust wide open the temps started dropping big time!

Guage by fire box read 220°, center digi temp read 190° and far side temp read 175°. That is with both vents wide open and temps kept dropping.

I ended up twisting my cooker so the intake at the firebox faced north since we have a northern cool front. Its windy with gusts up to 25-30mph and temps started to rise. Its 60° F outside and temps got back to normal........but i never had to do this with KF. Any idea what went wrong?

[flyingbassman5]

Did you have enough of the Stubbs lit? Sometimes it take a few extra minutes to really get the charcoal going. I use Stubbs exclusively and have never had that problem.

Give us a little more info on your set up. Are you using a charcoal basket? What kind of offset? How high up is your charcoal grate? Are you sure it didn't get choked off from ash?

Answer those questions and we should be better off with giving some help.

[bacchus99]

Stubbs works great in my WSM. Love it. It does take longer than k blue to ash over tho. Maybe they weren't red hot enough?

[Noob]

Originally Posted by flyingbassman5

Did you have enough of the Stubbs lit? Sometimes it take a few extra minutes to really get the charcoal going. I use Stubbs exclusively and have never had that problem.

Give us a little more info on your set up. Are you using a charcoal basket? What kind of offset? How high up is your charcoal grate? Are you sure it didn't get choked off from ash?

Answer those questions and we should be better off with giving some help.

I lit up a chimeny full. They werd fired up and left for 30 min approx while i prepared my grilling area and cleaned the cooker. I made a basket as many of us have from expanded metal from home depot. My offset is a NB hondo (almost identical to their black diamond) and there is about a 1.5 inch gap between the bottom of the basket to the bottom of the firebox and no ash at all. Hers is a pic i took of my set up kn my last cook where i used KF. As i am writing this, the basket has 20lbs of stubbs and tempz in center at grate level can not get over 280. I wanted to cook thiz butt at 300

[Ron_L]

It's possible that the wind was strong enough that it was starving the fire, kind of like how it can take you breath way if you face the wrong way.

[Noob]

2.5 hrs in and the temp FINALLY went up to 300 and lasted about 10 min and now 275 :(

I am sure i am gonna be here alot longer than i thought. With this yo-yo temps. Will post pr0n about 10 hrs from now

[flyingbassman5]

Ron has a good point as well. The wind can crush temps if its hitting the rig just right. Also, trying to cook at a higher temp like 300 is tough on a cheap offset. Even truer when using a basket to hold the charcoal. Offsets are ALL about airflow. Having a large basket full of charcoal can really hurt the flow of air and make it hard to keep enough heat flowing into the cook chamber to keep a temp above 250.

Have you ever cooked with KBB at the temps you are today? Other than that I have no idea why the Stubbs would die out like you said.

[Noob]

Well good news is once i had 20lb of stubbs on there at temps under 230 i lit a full chimeny of KF and now temps have been at 290-310 for 2 hours. I am 5 hrs into the cook and havent peeked in the cooker yet, which is strange for me cuz i was a looker.