smoked meatloaf only 1/2 cooked

knotquiteawake · Jan 10, 2013

My meatloaf has been in my smoker for 4 hours now around 250 degrees, the bottom of it is cooked, the top 1/2 of it is RAW, 155 on the bottom 120 on the top.

Whats going on here? I'm preheating the oven inside now to toss it in and finish off the cooking, so I guess 1/2 of it will be over cooked and the other probably dangerous to eat because the ground beef has been sitting at low temps for 4 hours.

GRRR.

Here it is when I first put it in, i've since moved it down the racks a bit to hopefully finish the cooking.

IMG_20130110_131150.jpg

knotquiteawake
Jan 10, 2013

vaquero01 · Jan 10, 2013

Are you getting a consistent 250 through out your smoker? By looking at your photo it appears that your vent is all the way open on the back side of the box. I am not anywhere as familiar with these little propane jobs as I'm a cast iron stick burner and I'm sure others a little more familiar will chime in with more info. However, temp is temp and if I were a gambling man (and I am) I'd wonder about where you are getting your 250 reading from. If you were getting a consistent temp through out your box, this shouldn't happen, but as only the bottom of your loaf is cooking that should indicate that it is the only side being exposed to the 250 temp. The foil pan will affect it some but not as much as you describe.

Good luck

timberjet · Jan 10, 2013

I would suggest jeff's e-course to tune you up on technique. Your immedate problem I would suggest is that your thermometer is off . the thermometer on most smokers is junk. you should check it with your meat therm.. Also seems to me not much smoke coming out of there. Usually when the bottom of anything is overcooked in a smoker your heat would be too high. I would check and calibrate your smoker probe. also I do my meatloaf on the rack with the pan below to catch the good stuff. you can cook it for a while in the pan and then flip it over and it should all stay together. Anyway just some thoughts. By the way as long as you get safe cooking temp you should be fine to eat it.

knotquiteawake · Jan 10, 2013

The smoker temp is via an aftermarket probe, not he factory so I'm sure its at least within 10 degrees or so of what it says.

I used a thermapen to take the temp of the meat and I think I moved the pen a little too fast and part of the low temp was outside the meat itself. My panicked mistake fueled by the bright pink color (DUH! THat from the smoke stupid... Now I know) of the top of the meat. In reality the temp difference was more like 145 at the top and 160 at the bottom. Still significant but not as bad as I thought.

I flipped it and finished it in the oven. It turned out good. Nice smoky flavor, slightly more cooked than normal but edible and mostly delicious. I think next time I will find a shallower pan and also do a flip 1/2 way through if it looks like the same issue might be happening again.

The wind was shifting around a bit and I think possibly i had some cold breeze hitting the vent directly. The picture I posted as right as it went in,

Here is the finished product:

IMG_20130110_174321.jpg

knotquiteawake
Jan 10, 2013

Oh, and on the first picture if you look closely you can see the temp probe next to the pan.

dirtsailor2003 · Jan 11, 2013

knotquiteawake said:
My meatloaf has been in my smoker for 4 hours now around 250 degrees, the bottom of it is cooked, the top 1/2 of it is RAW, 155 on the bottom 120 on the top.

Whats going on here? I'm preheating the oven inside now to toss it in and finish off the cooking, so I guess 1/2 of it will be over cooked and the other probably dangerous to eat because the ground beef has been sitting at low temps for 4 hours.

GRRR.

Here it is when I first put it in, i've since moved it down the racks a bit to hopefully finish the cooking.

IMG_20130110_131150.jpg

knotquiteawake

Jan 10, 2013

I've made some large meat loafs before and don't think that you need to use a shallower pan or flip. I would suggest that you move down to the rack that has the empty tin pan on it, and run the smoker at 275*-350* You'll still get plenty of smoke and your finished product will still be moist. I like a dry smoke chamber and I don't use water in the water pan in my GOSM (great outdoor smokey mountain gas smoker). It is filled with sand and covered with tin foil for better heat transfer.

knotquiteawake · Jan 11, 2013

dirtsailor2003 said:
I've made some large meat loafs before and don't think that you need to use a shallower pan or flip. I would suggest that you move down to the rack that has the empty tin pan on it, and run the smoker at 275*-350* You'll still get plenty of smoke and your finished product will still be moist. I like a dry smoke chamber and I don't use water in the water pan in my GOSM (great outdoor smokey mountain gas smoker). It is filled with sand and covered with tin foil for better heat transfer.

I am curious about the sand filled water pan. Is this good for pretty much any smoking venture? I am assuming that the humidity probably also contributes to the "stall" we get with some large cuts of meat?

I will move it lower next time and crank the heat a bit more. All in all the "experiment" was an edible mistake so I'm ok with it in the end.

Dutch · Jan 11, 2013

The sand absorbs heat and helps with regulating the temps. When you open and close the door to your smoker, the heat in the sand helps your smoker recover and return to temp quicker. Another plus with using sand, is you're not opening the door every hour to refill the pan with water.

dirtsailor2003 · Jan 11, 2013

knotquiteawake said:
I am curious about the sand filled water pan. Is this good for pretty much any smoking venture? I am assuming that the humidity probably also contributes to the "stall" we get with some large cuts of meat?

I will move it lower next time and crank the heat a bit more. All in all the "experiment" was an edible mistake so I'm ok with it in the end.

I haven't used water in the water pan for ages, and I smoke everything. Never had an issue with dry food! Part of the problem with the water is that once it reaches boiling 212* it will stay there and doesn't heat anymore, no matter how high you crank the smoker. So the water is always in a cooling mode. Here where I live during the winter I need all the thermal mass I can get working with me not against me. I also try and not open the door unless I absolutely have to.

Another thing I didn't notice, are you using the built in therm for the smoke chamber temp or a remote? It's good to check the smoke chamber temp with a remote to verify that the built in therm is accurate. More often than not they aren't. Mine, when it was working, was 45*-50* off. So I have always used a remote temp for the smoke chamber.

knotquiteawake · Jan 11, 2013

I have a remote

timberjet · Jan 11, 2013

knotquiteawake said:
I am curious about the sand filled water pan. Is this good for pretty much any smoking venture? I am assuming that the humidity probably also contributes to the "stall" we get with some large cuts of meat?

I will move it lower next time and crank the heat a bit more. All in all the "experiment" was an edible mistake so I'm ok with it in the end.

yes the sand or water is mostly there for thermal mass. to regulate heat in your smoker and keep temperature spikes from occurring. the stall you are talking about is the connective tissue breaking down into edible and yummy form. stall is good. just hard to take when you are hungry. I would not crank the heat up but allow for more time as low and slow is what it's all about. I did a ten pound elk meatloaf the other evening and thank goodness I made some ABT's to hold me over until it was done at 1:30am lol.

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smoked meatloaf only 1/2 cooked

knotquiteawake

Newbie

IMG_20130110_131150.jpg

vaquero01

Smoke Blower

timberjet

Master of the Pit

knotquiteawake

Newbie

IMG_20130110_174321.jpg

dirtsailor2003

Epic Pitmaster

IMG_20130110_131150.jpg

knotquiteawake

Newbie

Dutch

Smoking Guru

dirtsailor2003

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knotquiteawake

Newbie

timberjet

Master of the Pit

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