First Try - High Dome Temp/Low Grill Temp

[tatoosh]

I am just trying the Smokenator 1000 on my Weber 22.5 OTG grill. I am in the Philippines, altitude about 5000 feet, and humidity probably 90% to 95% or so. Not one of our 99% or higher days.

This is my initial trial of the Weber and Smokenator, so no food involved at all. Smokenator filled with lump charcoal, no wood added, but water bowl filled. Grill temperature refers to the Lower Food Support Grill, not the Top Cooking Grill which has been removed and replaced with the Smokenator.

The local lump charcoal seems to be running a much hotter dome temperature than I expected. It sits around 280F according to my k-type Thermoworks dual probe unit while the Grill temp is 185F to 190F. A second cheaper Thermowork thermometer (20 buck variety) shows a dome temp of 295F to 299F and is positioned through the upper vent and is very close to the wire probe measuring the dome but reporting a 15 to 20 degree lower reading.

Lower vent is open 1/2 inch and upper vent is 3/8ths inch. Is there a strategy to lower the dome temperature and raise the grill temperature?

Water is not disappearing from the water pan quickly, after 45 minutes three fourths of the water pan's volume seems to remain. I don't mind higher dome temperatures, but I do want to be able to regulate my grill temperature and to get the local lump charcoal to last as long as possible, though that is a secondary concern.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.

[ecripps]

You might want to use binder clamps to help keep the lid shut. Only use them if you can't keep the dome temperature below 250. You can place the food support grill on top of the Smokenator and measure the temp there. I'd only use the coal support grill for when I'm doing a turkey or cooking a lot of meat and will rotate the food around. Also try to make sure the lump coals are roughly the same size or you can get uneven burning and it can become hard to control your temperature.

Ed

[tatoosh]

Thanks, I'll look for some binder clips. The lid appears to fit quite nicely, no rocking to it at all when it sits on the Kettle.

I apologize for not getting my terminology straight. What I was calling the Food grate is, in fact, the charcoal grate. I removed the top Food grate when I put the Smokenator in.

I ran about three hours of testing, using the only charcoal available here in my part of the Philippines. The dome temperature ran 280F or up almost all the time. Later after 2 hours, I refilled the charcoal and ran it with the upper vent completely open and tried to control the grate (cooking) temperature with the lower vent. Just an idea from a different thread here. No luck, I got dome temperatures in the 358F to 413F range the Food (Charcoal Grate) area was back to 176F to 182F. Drat and Double Drat!

Back when I ran the bottom vent opened to 1/2 inch and the top vent 3/8 (pencil thickness) the Food (Charcoal Grate) area rose to 214F - 227F around an hour and a half and stayed there about 1 hour. Then it was back to the sub 200F Food (Charcoal Grate) area temperature regardless of the dome temperature.

My next go I will try with the standard food grate on top of the Smokenator and take temperatures there to see if I can get to the correct cooking temperature on a regular basis.

From reading other threads, I see that the dome temperature is not my primary concern, the area where the food is cooking is the most important part. And I really need to figure out how to reliably get that to the 200F to 225F range.

The Dome temperature's high readings apparently imply I'll be going through the lump coal quickly. I don't mind that, but it will likely cause the wood to burn or smoke a lot. I worry about that. Wood is hard to come by and I sure do not want to oversmoke my meats.

I will look around next month to see if I can find any of the Chinese briquettes occasionally sold down in Manila. They are very different than US briquettes, being larger and round with a single hole in the center. None for sale here, but they might provide a steadier heat source.

[ecripps]

Tatoosh,

You want to put the food support grill back into the Weber and on top of the Smokenator. The coal support grate at the bottom of the grill can be used to smoke, but the food needs to be moved to the food support grill above the Smokenator. Check out www.smokenator.com/CompetativeFeatures.htm for a picture.

Ed

[tatoosh]

I see! I got too keyed in on doing a turkey (in the future) that I simply started doing all my testing based on that. But that is not where most of the food will be cooked. So I will redo the temperature testing phase again tomorrow but take my readings on the traditional Food Grill level and the Dome level.

I also found some of the Chinese style Charcoal which is round with a hole in its center and slightly larger than our US briquettes. It is more solid than the locally made lump charcoal and may give me better temperature regulation.

I will forgo binder clips for this next test but will try them next time if changing the probe location and type of charcoal doesn't improve my dome and cooking temperatures.

Thanks for pointers!

[tatoosh]

Could I get an average weight of the Kingsford briquettes? What 10 of them would weigh? Then I could have a better comparison for my Chinese briquettes which look to be maybe twice the size of a US briquette, but with more burning surface since they are cylindrical with a hole in the center. The Chinese charcoal cylinders are pretty heavy and I'd like to try using the Minion method but adjusting by weight since going by briquette count simply isn't comparable.

[piggedy81]

could you just break your briquettes so they're about the size of the ones here in the US?

[tatoosh]

Theoretically yes, of course. Though I'm not sure that is necessary. Their design fits easily through the two feed holes. I just want to get in the ball park in terms of weight or volume so I can compare what I have with what most of the guys are using in the USA. Weight is the easiest way to compare them since they are different shapes which makes comparing volume a bit more problematic.

And then it has been almost 10 years since I've handled a US briquette, so my estimation of the US briquette's size might be off.

Hoorah! A friend on a different forum let me know that 10 of the new style Kingsford briquettes weigh 240 grams! So I have rough idea of how much, by weight, the recommendations for the Smokenator are.

I have some Chinese tubular charcoal, which is larger and possibly a bit denser than US kingsford briquettes. Three of the Chinese tubes are 275 grams, slightly more than 10 of Kingsford. The Chinese Tubular charcoal is 3 inches long, 1 3/4 inches in diameter, with a small 1/2 inch hole running through the middle (though not particularly well centered).

The Smokenator owner's manual suggests 50 briquettes or a bit over 2 1/2 pounds of charcoal. That is roughly 13 of the Chinese tubular pieces. I will use 4 or 5 of the Chinese Tubes started on top for the Minion method.

I will spend this afternoon running a temperature test. If things go well early on, I have a rack of ribs prepped in the refrigerator to make my first go at the low and slow BBQ I've been dreaming of for the last few years. Yippee!

[tatoosh]

The tubular charcoal works very well and is pretty long lasting. It is a bit hard to start, so I will probably use lump charcoal to get it going (Minion method). I am a bit puzzled by my temperature readings. I ran dome temperatures 240F to 250F for most of the time using 3/8 inch vent settings both at top and below. The grill (food grate) temperature was 160F though it got up to 200F for a couple of hours.

When I added a rack of ribs, the grill temperature dropped way back and took a long time to come back past the 140F and get into the 160F range. It never came back to the 200F range. I wanted to cook the rib rack using the 3-2-1 method, but during the 2 hour foil wrapped period, it never got to 200F so I felt the desired "moisture steaming" wasn't going to happen. I moved the ribs, still wrapped for the last hour to my kitchen oven at 400F and cooked wrapped for 1 hour.

When finished they were good, not falling off the bone done but tender and had a nice smoke ring from the mesquite I used in the 3 hour smoking period. But it shows promise and if I can control the heat better and change my rub/sauces approach, I think smoking ribs will be a regular event.

So now I will do binder clips. Any advice on adjustments to the lower and upper vents would be appreciated. What to close and what to open to increase food grate temperatures? Open the bottom vent full and use the top vent at 3/8 inch? I read the manual that says to control the heat with the top vent, but not what to expect by opening or closing it, other than to smother the fire by closing both vents.

[ecripps]

Keep the lower vents open all of the wall. If you open the upper vent more the temp will go up. Close it down and the temp will go down. Only use the binder clamps if you can't keep the dome temp below 250.

Ed

[tatoosh]

Thank you for the great advice! I will do another smoke next Sunday and see if I can't get better control on the temperatures. I'm really enjoying the Smokenator. Brilliant device and it does really open up my Weber to many other uses.

[Happy Buddha]

tatoosh,

I have nothing to add as I've just bought my first Weber Kettle and my Smokenator is on order, but just curious where you are in the Philippines at 5000 feet. Baguio? I lived many years in Asia, including Manila (my wife is Pinay) and would love to still be there but recently returned to the US to stay with my elderly mother.

DrewC