So here was the situation guys. I decided to try and smoke my first two beer can chickens this past weekend and ran into an issue getting my smoker up to temp. I was cooking for nine, as the family came over for football and beer... a lot of beer.
Up until then, I had only made ribs and some bacon wrapped shrimp in that baby and never had an issue coming up to temp or maintaining it... granted I’m only up to around 235 or so. I put plenty of Weber briquettes in using the minion method and filled up my chimney about 3/4 of the way and fired them up. Dumped them into the smoker and we were off. I made some shrimp wrapped in bacon and had it around 235 for 30 minutes or so, took em off and opened the vents hoping to get her up to 300. I threw the chickens on right away, anticipating the temp to rise pretty quickly but I couldn’t get the damn thing above 260. I waited about 20 minutes and decided to throw on a few more coals that I got going in the chimney again (which I immediately regretted after I saw my chicken get a nice layer of soot from the rising embers...rookie mistake). I had noticed that one side of my coals didn’t seem to light after the first round was dumped in. I had discovered that two of the three vents were almost completely closed and I figured that was the reason I coudnt get it up to temp. I decided to then remove my water pan and watched the temp skyrocket to over 350 in a matter of minutes. I closed the vents a bit but couldn’t get it down, so back went the water pan. It finally stabilized at around 305 ish for the remainder of the cook. I was surprised to see the chicken turned out pretty good, even with the heating issues. It was still moist, but the skin definitely wasn’t as crispy as I had hoped. I think if I inject (which I meant to do but completely forgot, there is an awful lot going on when you’re cooking on the smoker!) next time it will be even better.
I’m not sure how long the coals were going before I noticed the closed vents, but I would say it was almost surely a half hour at most. Would this be long enough to almost choke the fire out? I guess it was either the closed vents, or I didn’t give the coals ample time in the chimney before dumping them in.
The temp was a mild 65 degrees or so, overcast/drizzle throughout the cook with a pretty decent breeze. Thanks for the feedback. Sorry guys... with everything going on, I forgot the pics!
Up until then, I had only made ribs and some bacon wrapped shrimp in that baby and never had an issue coming up to temp or maintaining it... granted I’m only up to around 235 or so. I put plenty of Weber briquettes in using the minion method and filled up my chimney about 3/4 of the way and fired them up. Dumped them into the smoker and we were off. I made some shrimp wrapped in bacon and had it around 235 for 30 minutes or so, took em off and opened the vents hoping to get her up to 300. I threw the chickens on right away, anticipating the temp to rise pretty quickly but I couldn’t get the damn thing above 260. I waited about 20 minutes and decided to throw on a few more coals that I got going in the chimney again (which I immediately regretted after I saw my chicken get a nice layer of soot from the rising embers...rookie mistake). I had noticed that one side of my coals didn’t seem to light after the first round was dumped in. I had discovered that two of the three vents were almost completely closed and I figured that was the reason I coudnt get it up to temp. I decided to then remove my water pan and watched the temp skyrocket to over 350 in a matter of minutes. I closed the vents a bit but couldn’t get it down, so back went the water pan. It finally stabilized at around 305 ish for the remainder of the cook. I was surprised to see the chicken turned out pretty good, even with the heating issues. It was still moist, but the skin definitely wasn’t as crispy as I had hoped. I think if I inject (which I meant to do but completely forgot, there is an awful lot going on when you’re cooking on the smoker!) next time it will be even better.
I’m not sure how long the coals were going before I noticed the closed vents, but I would say it was almost surely a half hour at most. Would this be long enough to almost choke the fire out? I guess it was either the closed vents, or I didn’t give the coals ample time in the chimney before dumping them in.
The temp was a mild 65 degrees or so, overcast/drizzle throughout the cook with a pretty decent breeze. Thanks for the feedback. Sorry guys... with everything going on, I forgot the pics!
