DECENT BBQ
Knows what a fatty is.
Hello everyone! Its been a while since I've been on here, but 2 years after putting down a deposit I finally received my 500 gallon Moberg Smoker. Here she is:
Did my first cook yesterday on it: 4 briskets, 2 pork butts, 6 ribs and 50 wings. I made some interesting observations during the cook that I would like to share with you all and get some feedback and opinions about.
I used a 4" full pan as a water pan on the bottom grate closest to the firebox.
Brisket and pork butts went on at 7pm on the bottom grates farthest from the firebox at a temperature of 275*. Being that this was my first time using it, I struggled for the first 5-6 hours, but managed to keep the temps between 250-275.
What I figured out, or at least what worked best for me, was that you need to keep the exhaust damper fully open and fine tune the temperature via the firebox door. Whats counterintuitive here (to me) is that opening the door reduces the temperature, and closing the door increases it. There were times where I had the door fully closed and it would maintain temps for a good 30-40 min without me having to do anything to it. This is the exact opposite of my Chargriller offset, where you keep the firebox door fully open and fine tune the temp via the exhaust damper. Trying to regulate the temperature with the exhaust damper on the 500 only resulted in smoke coming out of the firebox door and not really doing anything to the temperature.
Any thoughts on the theory behind this? Is this common for all 500+ gallon smokers? I'm guessing it has a lot to do with the firebox being fully insulated. The top of the firebox doesnt get hot at all, you can put your hand on it no problem.
The bark on the brisket didn't set until after 10 hours. After 10 hours, I reduced the temp on the bottom grates to 250* for the briskets as this is when the ribs went on the top grates at 275*. I also wrapped them in foil at this time. I spritzed the briskets 4-5 times after the first hour, but nothing heavy. Does it normally take this long for the bark to set on these large smokers? On my small one its usually set after 5-6 hours, and is done (probe tender) after 10-12 hours. These briskets cooked for 17 hours and the flats were still not probe tender (the points were, though). I knew that it took longer for brisket to cook on large smokers, but not that much longer. I had to pull them off at the 17 hour mark as I was smoking for other people, and just told them to wrap them in foil and reheat in the oven until its probe tender.
Should I have not spritzed, used a smaller water pan, or maybe both? I'm sure reducing the temperature to 250* after 10 hours didn't help, but didn't think a 25* difference would be that significant as far as total cook time. Having said that, the ribs cooked exactly as expected, 5 hours at 275* using the 3-2-1 method.
So why did the briskets and pork butts take a lot longer, but the ribs cooked in the same amount of time as my small smoker? Would the briskets maybe cook in a shorter amount of time if they were on the top rack where the ribs were?
After getting the temps stabilized, I was averaging 1 cubic foot of wood per hour, does this seem correct? Ambient temp was between 45-50*. Seems pretty reasonable to me, my wood cost is $10 cu/ft. For this cook I only used wood. For the next one, I'm going to try using a charcoal/wood combination, which is what I used on my small offset with great success. Hoping to bring the operating costs down from $100/cook, which is what wood only cost me this round.
Here are some pics from the cook https://imgur.com/a/81bKHP2
Did my first cook yesterday on it: 4 briskets, 2 pork butts, 6 ribs and 50 wings. I made some interesting observations during the cook that I would like to share with you all and get some feedback and opinions about.
I used a 4" full pan as a water pan on the bottom grate closest to the firebox.
Brisket and pork butts went on at 7pm on the bottom grates farthest from the firebox at a temperature of 275*. Being that this was my first time using it, I struggled for the first 5-6 hours, but managed to keep the temps between 250-275.
What I figured out, or at least what worked best for me, was that you need to keep the exhaust damper fully open and fine tune the temperature via the firebox door. Whats counterintuitive here (to me) is that opening the door reduces the temperature, and closing the door increases it. There were times where I had the door fully closed and it would maintain temps for a good 30-40 min without me having to do anything to it. This is the exact opposite of my Chargriller offset, where you keep the firebox door fully open and fine tune the temp via the exhaust damper. Trying to regulate the temperature with the exhaust damper on the 500 only resulted in smoke coming out of the firebox door and not really doing anything to the temperature.
Any thoughts on the theory behind this? Is this common for all 500+ gallon smokers? I'm guessing it has a lot to do with the firebox being fully insulated. The top of the firebox doesnt get hot at all, you can put your hand on it no problem.
The bark on the brisket didn't set until after 10 hours. After 10 hours, I reduced the temp on the bottom grates to 250* for the briskets as this is when the ribs went on the top grates at 275*. I also wrapped them in foil at this time. I spritzed the briskets 4-5 times after the first hour, but nothing heavy. Does it normally take this long for the bark to set on these large smokers? On my small one its usually set after 5-6 hours, and is done (probe tender) after 10-12 hours. These briskets cooked for 17 hours and the flats were still not probe tender (the points were, though). I knew that it took longer for brisket to cook on large smokers, but not that much longer. I had to pull them off at the 17 hour mark as I was smoking for other people, and just told them to wrap them in foil and reheat in the oven until its probe tender.
Should I have not spritzed, used a smaller water pan, or maybe both? I'm sure reducing the temperature to 250* after 10 hours didn't help, but didn't think a 25* difference would be that significant as far as total cook time. Having said that, the ribs cooked exactly as expected, 5 hours at 275* using the 3-2-1 method.
So why did the briskets and pork butts take a lot longer, but the ribs cooked in the same amount of time as my small smoker? Would the briskets maybe cook in a shorter amount of time if they were on the top rack where the ribs were?
After getting the temps stabilized, I was averaging 1 cubic foot of wood per hour, does this seem correct? Ambient temp was between 45-50*. Seems pretty reasonable to me, my wood cost is $10 cu/ft. For this cook I only used wood. For the next one, I'm going to try using a charcoal/wood combination, which is what I used on my small offset with great success. Hoping to bring the operating costs down from $100/cook, which is what wood only cost me this round.
Here are some pics from the cook https://imgur.com/a/81bKHP2
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