Hey there! Ran my PBC for the 3rd time yesterday and I'm feeling a little discouraged/confused about what happened. Every time I cook, I learn something and try to apply it in practice but yesterday has me stumped. Here's what went down:
1. Bought two 6lb chickens for a previous cook and only ended up doing 1 of them so I froze the other. Didn't know until 24 hours prior that I'd be cooking yesterday so I moved the chicken from the freezer to the fridge. When I pulled the chicken out to start prep yesterday it was still very frozen. I was able to split it in half and submerged it in room temp water for 30-60 min which thawed it completely.
2. I started my PBC chimney with 1/4 of the coals and a couple waded up pieces of newspaper and let burn for 12 min. Unfortunately after checking in at the 12 min mark, the coals never lit. So had to relight and let go another 12 min. It was very windy but at the end of 12 min it was clear that a decent number of the coals had lit. Transferred to the coal basket and began cook immediately (2 racks of baby backs and 2 half chickens (6lb bird)).
3. Let the PBC go for 2.5 hours before ever checking in, trying to keep my temps down. I seemed to be making good progress but I noticed that most of the lit coals were on one side of the PBC. Closed it back up.
4. Checked in at the 3 hour mark and here's what I found. Very little if any drawback in the ribs and the chicken was at 151 degrees. Seemed like things were slow to progress but closed it back up for another 30 min.
5. Checked in at 3.5 hours and still not much drawback in the ribs and the chicken temp had actually dropped to 146! Also noticed that the breast meat was starting to look very dry.
6. I ended up putting the grill grate on and cooking the chicken a little longer on the grate to make sure I was at a safe eating temp (feeding to the kids). The chicken was definitely more dry than my last cook and the ribs had dried out as well. They did bite cleaner than my last cook but at the expense of being dry. Posted some pics below.
7. My father in law is a big fan of hooking a probe up and monitoring temps but I'm fighting that urge as I know that's part of the magic of the PBC, set it and forget it etc.
Can anyone shed any insight on what might have gone wrong, how to get more drawback on the ribs and why the chicken wasn't showing 165+ even at 3.5 hours?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk