I am fortunate enough to work remotely so PBCing during these slow work days leading up to Christmas seemed like a good idea. I went round 2 after my my tough maiden voyage with the Thanksgiving bird with considerably better results. I love it, wife loves it, neighbors loved it, but still one thing concerns me, the temperature of the PBC and how to start with and maintain higher temps than what I have experienced for longer cooks. We are having company next Monday and I plan on doing chicken again and a pork shoulder for some tacos. I just hope I can keep the temp up properly for a longer cook like a shoulder.
My concerns are that when I add the meat the PBC temp drops substantially, and much lower than the 325 target that I have been reading for this cooker. I could remove a re-bar as suggested in some threads but, when I cook more food like I plan to Monday I will need both re-bar in.
I am below 2000ft and thus have my damper open 1/4, I have read that some have had it as wide is 1/2 open under 2000ft. I am the SE US on the coast Hilton Head Island, SC, are any folks from the region that can advise on what their set it and forget it damper is set to?
Temps today were in the mid to upper 60s about 75% humidity and cloudy most of the day.
I am sure with some advice and from what I have already read in the existing threads I can do a better job by changing some steps. I have listed what I did throughout the cook in detail below.
As usual thanks in advance.
- Filled the basket level with KBB.
- Took out 30 briquettes (my chimney only holds 30) and lit them.
- Let sit for 20 minutes while I prepped chicken.
- Dumped the charcoal in the basket with the remaining charcoal.
- Put in one chunk of applewood.
- Put in re-bar and lid.
- Let sit for 10 minutes while I completed the chicken.
- PBC going between 298 and 300 degrees.
- Put 4 halves on the PBC and temp dropped to 197 in the 1 minute or so I had the lid off.
- After 12 minutes with lid on both re-bar, PBC temp is 235.
- After 40 minutes with lid and both re-bar, PBC temp is 249
- After 60 minutes with lid and both re-bar, PBC temp is 237
- After 88 minutes chicken internal temp 133
- I took out one of the re-bar and moved around charcoal while I checked the chicken.
- I moved all 4 halves onto one re-bar, left BOTH re-bar in.
- Temp of the PBC jumped to 272 and stayed there, but obviously let off more slightly thicker smoke.
- After 110 minutes chicken internal temp 145...
...and PBC temp 268 - After 140 minutes 4.5 lb chicken was 163 5.5lb chicken was 152...
...PBC temp was 243 - Cracked the lid.
- Took chicken off PBC at 163 minutes
- Left the PBC lid on removed 1 re-bar at 4.5 hours the temp was at 312.
- Left the PBC lid on removed 1 re-bar at 5 hours the temp was at 295.
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