I don't have an Auberins Temp controller but I do have a DigiQ which basically does the same thing.
I'm just a little confused by this line:
I added enough water to fill the coal 50%...... I can assume you added water and filled the charcoal basket half way.
Second, what were you looking at for your chamber temperature? The controller, the lid therm, or a Maverick type therm?
All that aside, I rarely use water in the water pan, preferring to dry smoke. Why? Water acts as a heat sink to keep temps low and I'm not much of a low n slow guy. Nowadays 250F is my lowest go to temp. Remember, water boils at 212F at sea level. If you set the controller much above 225F with full or partial water pan you are going to burn up a LOT of fuel as the blower works overtime to put additional heat in the high humidity chamber that is trying to maintain 212F. There's a lot of physics involved here. Others can chime in here too but when I do use water in the water pan I do a wet-to-dry smoke. I'll set the blower to 215 to 225F until the water pan is dry. When I see the temp start to climb, I know the pan is dry and I'll reset the blower to 250, 275, whatever my target temp.
A full chimney of hot charcoal is what I add to cold charcoal when I want a dry chamber temp of 325F+ for skin on poultry. If I want a lower temp I put less hot charcoal on the cold coals and wood: 1/4" chimney for 225F: about 1/3 for 250F, about 1/2 to 2/3 for 275F, 3/4 for 300-325F, and a full chimney for hotter.
When I did a dry run on my
WSM I filled the charcoal basket half way then added 1/2 chimney of hot coals. No blower was involved. I opened all the vents and let it run. The temp ran up to more than 350F and I let it stabilize there for a while, then I started choking it down to learn to control temps, which you don't have to do with a controller. I choked it down over several hours, letting the temps stabilize, eventually all the way down to 225F. I got 13+ hours out of that half load of KBB in my 22.5"
WSM.
Try the run again with no water at 250F with a half load of KBB and 1/3 chimney of hot coals. I use my Maverick to tell me when to shut down the lower vents and plug in my controller. When the chamber temp on my Maverick is about 15-25F below my target, that when I shut down the lower vents and plug in the controller. My lid therm is totally useless. At 250F on the Maverick it will now read about 180-200F.
BTW, there's really no need to burn out a
WSM, so on that dry run, throw something quick in there like sausages, meatloaf, boneless/skinless breasts or thighs, etc. No need is wasting good smoke!