I recently found and inherited an old vertical charcoal smoker from my grandparents garage. I tried it out for the first time last night and it's left some questions:
From reading this forum, I had it set up right (charcoal and wood at bottom, water pan (with beer and cider) above that and the brisket on the rack at top. There is no thermometer attached to this one so I used an oven thermometer that registered around 150-160 in at the brisket regularly. Unfortunately, after 12 hours the brisket was still only at 129 degrees.
It did have some gaps at the top that I filled with foil early on, but otherwise, I'm not exactly sure what I've done wrong. Any suggestions on what to do differently or modifications I can make would be greatly appreciated!
From reading this forum, I had it set up right (charcoal and wood at bottom, water pan (with beer and cider) above that and the brisket on the rack at top. There is no thermometer attached to this one so I used an oven thermometer that registered around 150-160 in at the brisket regularly. Unfortunately, after 12 hours the brisket was still only at 129 degrees.
It did have some gaps at the top that I filled with foil early on, but otherwise, I'm not exactly sure what I've done wrong. Any suggestions on what to do differently or modifications I can make would be greatly appreciated!
