OK thanks, If he doesn't I'll check with him. The only difference is i'll hang the whole time and won' t pull early.
Just watch it so it doesn't fall. Even if you don't wrap you may have to finish on the grate.
OK thanks, If he doesn't I'll check with him. The only difference is i'll hang the whole time and won' t pull early.
No worries....Did you see what mine is falling on? I have a grate it'll land on if it did fall.Just watch it so it doesn't fall. Even if you don't wrap you may have to finish on the grate.
FWISMOKER, please elaborate on your diffuser plate... how made ... use ... notice any difference ... purpose thx
Hello Everyone! Just discovered these forums and have been doing a lot of reading around here lately.
My PBC arrived in the mail today, pretty excited about getting to use it. Of course, it's going to have to wait a few days for these typhoons to pass, but oh well. Been smoking for the past 3 years or so on my 22in Weber Kettle with Smokenator accessory, and have managed to do a pretty darn good job with ribs, pulled pork, homemade bacon and brisket. Little nervous about the PBC in that there really is no grill temp monitoring. I can keep my weber between 225-250, adding 5-8 briquets every 40 minutes or so and that has always yielded excellent 'que. The one bad brisket was where the temp climbed to 350 for about 30 or 40 minutes. My briskets usually take 10-12 hours in the weber (~6.5 pound flat) so I'm curious to see how they do in the PBC.
Edit: I live in an extremely humid environment. Any tips for maintaining my cooker?
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:
You need to light more briquettes at first. 1/4 basket like Noah recommends is 40 briquettes. 10 more may not sound like a lot but trust me it is. Try lighting 40 and see if that helps your Temps and cook times.
And as northeast bbqer said go 20 minutes or so before dumping them in the fire basket.
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.
My experience exactly. I have started leaving the lid off for about 15 minutes before I put the food on. The temp starts out at 330 to 340 but settles down to 275-290 and it will hold there for aa couple of hours before starting to drop. When it gets to around 240 I put a paper clip under the lid or just crack it until the temp comes back up then the cycle starts all over again. I have found that the intake does not do much and I run it antwhere from 1/2 and 1/4 at sea level. All cooks have taken at least an hour longer than video times. The PBC turns out some really good tasting BBQ but it hasn't been set it and forget it for me. I like it though, it's a great cooker.