Temperature problems.

[Shaky]

Afternoon people,

Received my Excel 20 , which is my first ever smoker, the other day and have spent the last few days getting pretty excited about giving it a go, and decided to jump in (probably stupidly) at the deep end by cooking a good pork shoulder this morning.

After lighting up my heat beads in a weber chimney until they were good and smouldering I then placed them in the bottom of the smoker filled the water bowl 3/4 with hot water and sealed it up. I left it alone for about twenty mins before checking on it and was only hovering around the 80-90 degree celcius range so decided to add some more heatbeads so that the charcoal tray had a good little stack at the bottom. The temperature seemed to rise to around 100c so I plonked in my meat and sealed it up has been cooking for 2 hours now (is gonna be a late night . ) but the temperature won't seem to get above 95c at the probe level.

Do I just go ahead and crack open another bag of the heat beads or am I doing something fundamentally wrong (which wouldn't surprise me at all). all vents are open to full whack right now.

I apologise for my grand ignorance and would be very grateful for any help you can provide.

Many thanks,

Shaky

(P.s. This is my first post here...so, Hello everyone!!)

[British BBQ Society]

Hi Shaky,

First thing, too much water, you only want about 1 1/2" of boilng water in there any more and you are losing heat to the water. i have also found that one chimney is not enough for the Excel, i tend to light one load and put it in with a few extra beads and light a second, add that then add the water bowl. That will be enough for the entire cook as long as you dont keep taking the lid off.

Everyone will have their own opinion but I let it smoke for about 4 hours then foil it and wait until it gets up to temp. Do you have a digital temp probe that you can put in there to see if the temp gauge on the Excel is correct? sometimes they are a little off.

good Luck

Toby

[All Weather Griller]

HI Shaky,

What are you measuring the temps by. The lid probe on the excels are typically configured from the factory and to be honest I have never had one that has been anywhere near right from new. The beauty of these units unlike my weber ones is that the lid probe can be calibrated.

There is usually some instructions on this in the box, but they can be downloaded if you can't place them.

I smoked for 80 last weekend on a couple of Excels and I got exceptional results by just foiling the water pan and a couple of block paving bricks without using water. I do a variation of this on a regular basis now with my webers using the "Clay Saucer" method. As Toby says the Water can be be a contributing factor to the chamber heat and this is certainly my experience.

I find that when I use the no water technique in both ProQ and Weber using the vents to control the temp is like turning the oven up and down. Its that responsive.

[Shaky]

Thanks loads guys,

After my first post I decided to whack another 3/4 of a chimney of lit heat beads in and the temp has drifted up nicely to about 120-125c. You think that is probably acceptable?? Seems to be pretty stable.

After reading your advice I thought of removing some of the water but wasn't sure if maybe I had already played around too much and better it was better just to leave it alone for now?. I will definitely start it according to your advice next time.
I definitely need to recalibrate the pro-q probe but had another one that seemed to be working fine, after your posts I nipped down to work and borrowed the electronic probe from the kitchen to check against it and the pro-q one.

I am a little unsure how the cooler cooking period will affect it all but I guess I will just wait and see.

Really appreciate the quick responses, I have an awful lot to learn

[All Weather Griller]

HI Shaky.

Just a quickie, ideally you need to be cooking between 220 and 260 degrees F, check your vents are all open, when I smoke on the ProQ I find the bottom vents are most critical in getting it up to temp, once you have reached your desired temp i.e 230 then I close the top vent a qtr and see if this stops the temp rising.

Be aware of external factors:

Wind can impact in a number if ways, it can force a draft through the vents flaming the coals, it can take heat off the Q depending on chill and speed, it can also have an impact if your unit isn't sealed.

Rain, obviously this can have an affect on temp by taking off heat from the Q, although you can notice a jucier cook because of the humidity in the air.

Sun, because the smokers are black they do tend to attract heat when the sun is up so your results from an overcast day to that of a sunny day can make a 20-30 d difference.

In most instances, vent and fuel management can offset the external factors. I think if any of the other guys from the comps comment they will tell similiar your smoker is ike a 1972 Vauxhall Viva, only you will know its quirks.

One other point to be aware of is that the first few cooks you do will also be different to the remainder, your unit will be sealing itself, the smoke builds up inside and seals all of the little places where you bleed air and heat. This usually takes between 3 -6 smokes depending on duration and amount of woods used.

I'm sure over the next month or so you will notice a remarkable difference in both your smokers performance and your own.

Good luck with it, if you have any questions this is the place to ask them. Steve is particularly good with Algebra also .

Heat beads are good briquettes, they are the hottest i've cooked with,

[Steve]

Hey Shaky,

I've been cooking on Excels for just over a year now, I've refined my technique over this time and my smokers have improved as the seasoning has built up inside them.

You've already had some top tips so I don't know how much value I can add, but here are a few points worth noting.

1. Ditch the water. I've done side by side comparison cooks in two Excels, one with water, one with a terracotta saucer and there was quite simply no advantages to using water, but it causes a lot more pain when it comes to maintaining temps.

2. Try to keep your Excel out of the wind. They're not too bad in the rain or the cold but they really don't like the wind. Even when they're well seasoned, they leak a lot of heat around the stacker joins and doors. I've used an IR thermometer to look at the surface temps around the smoker, sad I know but I like to understand exactly what's happening.

3. Learn about how your fire burns. I only recently started studying the science behind fire control but it has improved my fire control immensely.

So if we talk about fire for a moment. I don't use heat beads for smoking, they're a very fine product and can be used for smoking but I like to set up my fire in a way that lends itself to lump. I use the minion method. Now there will be one or two on here that will tell you to avoid minion method and that it taints your food because you don't light all the charcoal at the beginning. However, while I think this point is valid with briquettes that contain binders, I actually think that minion method allows you to burn a very clean fire. When you throw 1 chimney plus of lit briquettes into a smoker you have more burning mass than the airflow can support, this means that your fire will choke back for at least a while. When choking back, you'll see white smoke coming from your exhausts, this white smoke contains all the chemicals in the wood (that your charcoal is made from) that aren't properly burned because the fire isn't running cleanly. This can easily taint your food and I think it's a lot harder to bring a fire down than it is to take it up to temp as you do with the minion method. I know some very successful American teams that run MM and if you look at how a fire is set up in an offset, it's very similar in that you keep fuelling with unlit wood.

Anyway, you're using heat beads so don't use Minion method whatever you do. Follow Toby's advice about fuel quantity but ditch the water. Remember that you want to stabilise your temperature and wait until your smoker stops giving off white smoke before you put the food on. I wouldn't put wood on until just before I put my food on if using heat beads, then look for a whisp of blue smoke to develop and then you're good to go.

So I've rambled on enough, if you want to talk more about anything specific just post a response and all of us will be happy to help.

Cheers

Steve

[Shaky]

Thanks very much for all the advice guys.... is great to find a forum that gives such indepth and helpful advice . Makes being a newbie a lot more comfortable.

Just as an update on how my pork went, because of my original temp issues it wasn't ready until about 2:30am but it came out tasting great. I think my girlfriend was very confused to be woken up by me putting a big pulled pork sandwich in her face at that time but she ate it graciously and made all the right noises . It was a real learning experience and am hoping that my next attempt at cooking will be smoother (tomorrow methinks!!). Pulling the bone easily and cleanly out of the pork was a very gratifying experience.

Anyways...thanks all again....I expect to be begging for your help very very soon .

Shaky

[All Weather Griller]

Hi Shaky,

Nice to hear you cracked it. It looks like we may have the weather for it tomorrow. I have a few racks of ribs in at the min and later will probably knock up a Beer Can Chicken.

Have a good un

Adie

[Smokin Mark]

Shaky,

I to experienced problems maintaining the temperature on my Frontier. In my case it was the charcoal.

I sought out some Big K briquettes, as per advice from this forum and now I have no problems with the temperature!

I searched around various places for Big K briquettes and eventually found them in Waitrose.

Smokin Mark