cmwr
05-20-2017, 12:50 PM
I have always used a UDS smoker. Recently I built a half UDS. I call it the Minion UDS. Because it is so short I cannot put meat directly over the coals so I took a weber rack and cut it in half. I slide my basket over to the opposite side so the meat is on the other half of the drum. It works and it works well although before today I have only smoked birds and smaller stuff. Today I am doing my largest smoking job in years in preparation for my sons graduation party tomorrow. I have 3, 8 lb pork shoulders on my standard UDS and 2 in my Minion. I am noticing that while running similar temps the meat in the full size is cooking noticeably faster. Those shoulders already have bark peeling away and internal temps of around 145. In the Minion I have internal temps around 117-120 and a nice bark starting and it is just starting to split open. I was wondering if it is common to have indirect smokers take longer to cook than direct smokers? It seems like a stupid question but the Minion is such a small area that I would think the ambient internal heat would still cook just as fast....