I must be doing something wrong because I cannot seem to get consistent results using my PBC :shocked: This thing is so simple and yet somehow it doesn't quite run "as advertised" for me... I've noticed that the cook times are significantly greater than what most are reporting no matter what I cook - chicken, pork, etc.
This weekend I decided to smoke a 9lbs Boston Butt. I followed the instructions to the "t" and it came out absolutely perfect, but it took 6.5 hours - 4.5 hours to reach 160* and another 2.5 hours to reach 200* (wrapped in foil). No biggie, it was well worth the wait :hungry:
I then decided to smoke 4 racks of SLC ribs. I decided to cut the racks in half because they were on the long side, and last time I did babybacks the end ribs (close to the charcoal basket) were a bit on the dry side. They were supposed to take about 3.5 hours (cook 3 hours, sauce and cook another 30 minutes) but in reality after 4.5 hours they still weren't as tender as they should have. I should have left them on there for another 30 minutes, but it was getting late and everybody was starving.
While I was smoking the ribs I noticed that the charcoal closer the vent was glowing pretty good, while the stuff on the back was barely going. As a result the ribs closer to the front were pulling away from the bone a lot more and were a lot more tender than the ones in the rear.
I haven't done chicken in a while, but I did a bunch of times in the past and I could never get close to the 2 hour mark, which according to Noah "works like clockwork". It usually 3, sometimes 4 hours for me.
I should mention that I am at 220ft elevation and I have my vent open 1/4 to 1/3 way and that I have been using exclusively Kingsford blue charcoal. I light the smoker per the instructions - fill the basket to the top (level), remove about 30 briquettes, light them in a chimney, wait 10-15 minutes, dump them in the basket and start hanging the meat.
I leave the lid closed until the meat is supposed to be close to done and I use a high quality digital thermometer so that I can monitor the temperature of the meat throughout the cook.
I am trying to figure out if I am doing something wrong, or all of this is considered normal. I am not bashing the PBC - I love the thing and I just want to learn how to get the most of it and perhaps get some a little bit more consisting results. As it stands today it is very hard to plan when to start smoking X if we want to have dinner at Y. I remember the first time I decided to do chicken we started a bit late and we figured it would be ready by 10pm the latest, but ended up eating at Midnight instead. Chicken was very tasty though :biggrin1:
