Smoker temps and stalling out!

[motorcitykid]

I had this happen on two occasions and was baffled by this. Here is the deal-I use a Brinkmann Gourmet smoker (ECB). I got my fire started and was waiting for the temp to get to 225 or 230 and then place the meat on. My buddy says that the temp is stalled between 210 and 215. I am watching this while have a cold one or two and this temp was stalled for about 40 minutes before it then rose to 225 to 230 consistently. That day I was doing brisket. Second time was same thing just not as long in time in the stall out mode. I started thinking about what might cause this to happen and had two ideas as to what it might be. One was that I soak my wood for a couple of hours prior to a long session (always seemed to work well for me so I have not changed yet) and that maybe the wood was dropping the temp slighly making it stall. I then thought about my water pan and it hit me. I always take everything I need to the smoking location and never leave. Thus I have my water with me and it was in the cooler and went straight from the cooler to the water pan. Yesterday I took my water and had it at 120 degrees before putting in the water pan and guess what happened. The temp rose steadily and never stalled at all until it hit 245. I then opened up my door on the smoker and put in a few ice cubes, closed the door and watched the temp dive to 220 before settling between 225 and 230. So my tip to any person using a Brinkmann Gourmet or Cajun smoker-Never use chilled water in your water pan and to use your water pan to lower your temp by adding ice cubes.

Steve

 

[gooose53]

Never put cold water in a water pan unless you want to wait for the cooker to heat up the water. I always use boiling hot or at least hot water out of the tap. You waste alot of time heating up the water.....unless that is planned (via drinking more beer).

 

[bigsteve]

The ice cubes didn't lower your temp. It was opening the door. Try it next time, open it for a time but forget the ice cubes.

Keep playing with it, that's how you learn the quirks of your cooker. I thought I had my gourmet completely dialed in.

BUT NoOoOoOoOoOo......... it's fighting back again these last couple of smokes.

 

[gnubee]

Yep opening the door is what caused the dip in temp.

I pour boiling water into the water pan using a long spouted watering can.

The bigger the volume of water, the better it works as a heat sink to even out the temp dips when you peek at the meat. As you get better and better at this art of smoking, the less and less you will need to peek at the meat. The less and less you peek the quicker it will be done.

I tried sand instead of water but it took a long time to warm up compared to using already boiling water.

 

[bigsteve]

Motorcitykid, let me give you a tip about the Gourmet. You know the cylinder lifts off the coal pan to let you tend to the fire.......

When you're at a point where you want to check the fire and also mop/check the meat...... Carefully lift the cylinder off the pan, and leave the lid on while you stir the coals. The lid does a good job of keeping the heat in while you're tending the fire. Then put the cylinder back, and lift the lid at that point to mop the meat. Doing it that way keeps the food warmer longer. If you popped the lid, mopped, then took the cylinder off to tend the fire, you'd lose way more cooking time.

 

[dick bullard]

Ditto on what they just said!!!

Your Avatar looks like my wife's eyes when she gets mad at me !!!

Rick

 

[tasunkawitko]

yep! ran into that myself during my first couple of times. once i switched to boiling or almost-boiling water, the problem went away and the difference was like night v day.