Temperature and humidity

[dave]

This weekend, I tried using some lump coal (Cowboy). The temp barely came up to 220 and it seemed like quite a challenge to do that. Kept opening the top vents in small amounts without seeing much change.
I was only planning on about 3 hours max of smoke time, so the chamber was only about half full of coal. I did start with 10 briquettes to get it all started and about 4 chunks of hickory.

The other part is that it was quite humid. Is humidity something we need to pay attention to?

Thanks

[Don Thompson]

Dave,
This has recently come to my attention. I have has similiar reports from several customers who have reported the same thing. I live in California where the humidity generally never gets very high. So I have not observed it. It very well could be. Try increasing the upper vent area by 50 % to see what happens and report back if you think about it. So I can report this in the Quick Start guide,
I am going to be calling some charcoal vendors and see what they say.
Thanks for the report.

Don

[jagerdog]

Hi, Dave-
I live in St. Louis, humidity is crazy here in summer. I have noticed two things in particular. One- the top vent can be opened larger to get that thick, muggy air flowing through the kettle. Two- always make sure you store your charcoal in a cool, dry place. Not in your Kingsford Caddy out on the deck. Lump charcoal is something I've tried, but I like the consistent performance of formed briquettes. Keep your kettle clean before each use, and make sure bottom vent holes are open and free of debris. Stir coals as per Don's instructions. -Dog

[dave]

jagerdog,

I'm just a few miles down the road in Columbia. So we share the same humidity, and it was quite 'thick' on Saturday when I was smk'n

I will experiment some more with the vents open yet more with the coal. I will also have to do something better for storage of the fuels too.

Thanks

[Don Thompson]

The storage issue could be something that is also contributing to the difficulty of keeping temperature up.
Here in dry California, the coals typically have 5% water in the charcoal.
Some of you who live in very high humidity area could do an experiment. Store come coals outside, under a covered are so they don't get rained on.
Say, after a couple of days and nights exposure. Take 10 briquettes, about 280 grams, weigh them, put them into your oven with the temperature of 250 degrees for about an hour and a half to "dry" out the briquettes. Reweigh and the difference is the amount of water contained in the coals. Divide the water amount by the wet amount will give the percentage of water in the "wet" coals..
Maybe then we can start to get an answer to this problem.
All the best,
Don

[sacbbqchamp]

I'm here in northern California too Don and I noticed I have a little bit of a problem getting the charcoal going during our rainy season which is usually November through April. I was keeping the charcoal outside in a plastic storage chest but when I moved the charcoal to the garage for storage it made a big difference. The charcoal appeared to be drier.

[bigsteve]

Have used my Sn'ator about 6 time now. I live on the west coast of Florida, very high humidity. I only once had trouble getting up to temp. I think I spread the lit coals out a little that time. Now I make sure they are piled together under the pan when I start, and it comes up in about 30 minutes.

[rusbry]

I live in St. Louis and have not experienced the temperature issues that have been reported but my charcoal is stored in a partially air conditioned garage.

[twoshots]

Sometimes I have good luck opening the BOTTOM vents to get the temp up quickly! Keep your charcoal as dry as possible. It is easier to lower the temp than raise it. Therefore you can start with no water in the pan and add as needed.

[delapaco]

Jul 26, 2009 19:29:47 GMT -5 twoshots said:

It is easier to lower the temp than raise it. Therefore you can start with no water in the pan and add as needed.

Huh? I would say the opposite in my environment (dry). To increase temp I just have to change the upper vent minimally and temprature responds in a few minutes. But to choke down the DTS when many coals are lit is a 30min+ job. And to get it stable again and not under shoot on the way down is even harder to me.

[rjkeats]

I live in perhaps the windiest and most humid place in the United States (south Texas) and have been noticing the default settings in the smokenator manual weren't working for me. Today I decided to try some experimentation. Temperature outside was a lovely 100 degrees with 72% relative humidity, and the wind was blowing at 15 miles per hour. I told you the weather sucked! Having been the victim of wind before, I now move my Weber Kettle to a corner of my yard sheltered from the wind on 3 sides. Removing that variable has helped me with the temperature issue greatly, but I still wasn't getting the rock solid 220-240 I wanted using the default settings. Here's what I did today with great results:

Upper vent set to 3/4 open (instead of pencil-width)
Lower vent full open.

1. I put 17 briquettes into the chimney starter (instead of 12).
2. I let those 17 get really really angry before I put them in the smokenator chamber.
3. When I dumped the 17 hot coals into chamber, I kept them directly below the water pan (instead of spreading them out).
4. I placed empty water pan on top of loaded coals, shut the lid then used remote sensor thermostat to make sure the pit got to my 220 goal.
5. It took about 15 minutes for pit to get to 220 at which time I put 3 racks of spare ribs into rib rack onto lower coal rack.
6. After I put ribs in, I monitored temperature drop and waited for it to rise. After about 15 minutes temperature started climbing above 240, so I filled smokenator water pan with tap water.
7. After about 10 minutes I was happy to see that my temperature was reading a beautiful 224 degrees and was steady!!
8. I filled water pan once an hour for the first 3 hours. When I checked at 4th hour I noticed that the coal level was getting pretty low, so I loaded chimney with 17 more coals.
9. When the 17 coals were ready, I knocked down the remaining embers and reloaded smokenator chamber.
10. I took ribs out of pit and put them in oven at 225 while I got pit back up to 220.
11. Right before the six hour mark my ribs were looking great so I pulled them and let them rest for 15 minutes in foil. The ribs turned out great.

I hope this helps my fellow hot and humid smokers.

[quadcam]

I'm in South FLorida on the east coast and the temps having been hovering close to 90 with very high humidity(between 65-85% depending on the time of day.) I just got my smokenator but I noticed right away that the "pencil" technnique was way off for me. I tried it thinking that was the right technique, but I couldn't get the lid temps over 200-210 at pencil width opening.