Did my maiden UDS cook yesterday.....I have a basic Norcoredneck design, will have to post a pic or two later on.
I probably overdid the cook........6 racks of baby backs and about 18 buffalo wings.....things were a little crowded, to say the least.
Read a lot of this thread, but did not read enough about temp control and lid removal for meat tending. I will have to adjust my cooking procedure, and take the loaded grates OUT to baste and shuffle meats, with the lid still on. I took the lid off a couple times for about 2 minutes or so, and things really fired up, and I got too much smoke and I suffered some pretty major temp spikes.....up over 290-300 about 2 or three times.......was really hard to get the thing back down under 240 or so. I did shut down the intakes before pulling the lid, but it still spikes. The key is to leave that lid on 99.9% of the time.
Ribs turned out okay, but did have a little Kingsford taste and were not as tender as on my other equipment.....my guess was that I had too much smoldering/creosote when I shut the thing down to bring down the temp spike.
Next time I think I will probably use the top rack only, and only cook about half as much meat. Keep the air moving. I noticed a lot of thicker white smoke whenever I pulled lid to shuffle things around.
Firing the thing up, loading the meat, and leaving it alone......are key steps. Maybe I need to just sauce and then cook in the sauce, with the lid off, right at the end, before pulling the meat.
Any thoughts or observations?
Thanks,
SmokinDave