Excessive Charcoal / Inconsistent meat temp

[JusWinginIt]

Appreciate any help I can get.

New to smoking, have about 8 smokes under my belt. Mostly pork shoulder, ribs and chicken. Using a 18 WSM.

Recently smoked a 8lb shoulder. Ran into some issues with using what I think is a ton of charcoal and meat cooking at different temps (pulled with half at 202 and half at 180). Here’s some more details:

8lb shoulder, trimmed excess fat, rubbed with mustard then dry rub and wrapped overnight. Sat out 1 hour before throwing on smoker. Minion method.. lined the bottom with charcoal maybe 1.25-1.5 high? Entire chimney of lit coals on top. Cooked consistently at 245-260. Apple wood.. used around 10 chunks total. 12 hour total cook time, outside temp started at 12 degrees and got up to 35.

Here’s my issue:on top of the charcoal listed above, I used around 1/2-3/4 of another bag of Kingsford, the 15 or 18lb bag. Temp would drop and I would throw in charcoal through the smoke.. when I would look in the charcoal had already ashed to the bottom for the most part.

Other issue- had a huge stall at 174(2 hours) once I got it to 178 I decided to move the probe and found that half of the shoulder was already at 200. Decided to pull at 202 which left other half at 180.

Long first thread! Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[gmc2003]

Next time you fire up place a tin can either in the middle of the charcoal grate or on one of the sides. Fill up the charcoal ring completely. Bury about 2 to 4 chunks of wood in the charcoal(depends on size of chunks and desired smokiness). Pull the can out and fill the space with lit coals. On my 22 WSM I usually use about a 1/4 of a chimney starter. Start with all vents wide open. Once your close to temp start closing down bottom vents until the WSM has stabilized. Once you pull the meat off close all vents and choke the smoker down. You can reuse any remaining unlit coals. Hope this helps.

Chris

 

[SmokinAl]

The WSM will run hot on the outside, so if I'm just smoking one butt I would put it on the bottom rack & try to keep it away from the sides of the smoker. I put lava rock & water in the water pan & do as gmc does only I put about 6-8 chunks of wood mixed in with the charcoal. Just fill the ring as full as you can get it. It's hard for me to give you advice since I'm in Florida & not used to smoking in those kinds of temperatures. But a welding blanket wrapped around the WSM will hold the heat in & not use nearly as much fuel.
Good luck on the next one!
Al

 

[sauced]

Thought here was that the outside temp was a bit too low and that causes the smoker to use more fuel to keep the cooking temp where you want it. I second the welding blanket....think that will really help you.

 

[noboundaries]

Lots of great advice above. All of it absolutely correct. What caught my attention was the internal temp difference in the meat; 202F on one side, 180F on the other. That's quite a difference.

For temps as low as you were smoking initially, the welder's blanket will absolutely help, no doubt about it.

Let me give you one more piece of experience I recently learned about my WSM from whole turkeys and big pieces of meat. Rising heat and smoky air from your fire will find the quickest path to the top vent. That's physics. Since the top vent is over to side of the lid, not directly in the center, the WSM will be hotter on the side with the vent. It isn't real noticeable on hot days, but on cold days, it can make a big difference. I've evened out big meat ITs in my WSM by paying attention to how I load meat on the top grate. With whole turkeys for example, I load the bird with the breast on the opposite side of the vent. The IT of the breast and thigh are now within a degree or two of each other.

Same with packers (point opposite the vent, flat nearest the vent). Butts and picnics I load perpendicular to the vent, kind of off center on the top grate closer to the opposite side of the vent.

I've been smoking 4-5 times a month on average with my WSM for the last 4+ years and just figured this out last Fall.