So is anyone else adding charcoal or doing anything to get a longer burn? I've had mine over a year now and have definitely run a bunch of stuff through it, but I'm noticing right around 7-7.5 hours the charcoal seems to burn out and i can't keep a cook going. I like to have my pork butt's hang out in the stall for a bit so what i'm running into is the last little bit. For instance here's what i did yesterday:
1. loaded up the basket as full as it could be
2. took out 40 caols and put them in a chimney
3. lit the chimney with newspaper and at 12 minutes dumped into the PBC
4. grabbed a 6.5lb butt and let it hang in the cooker at 8:30am. i had injected it and put on my rub 24 hours prior like i always do.
5. Around 1155ish is when i noticed it was at 165ish so i let that cook for a while, i find out it comes out more tender the longer i let it hang out in the stall
6. 1pm took it off the hooks and placed on the grate (almost lost it here as one hook pulled right out)
7. around 4 we were still at 190ish in the middle and 200ish around the edges (i like to go to 203). at this point i noticed my PBC wasnt putting off any real heat.
8. wrapped and put it back on the pbc with just a little bit of apple juice in there, for 15 min with the lid cracked. i thought this would bring me up to 203 but the temp actually went down so i pulled it and put it in a cooler for 1.5 hours.
now the butt came out fantastic as it always does, but if i were cooking say 2 butts which would fit i doubt i could go the same route as i did. so i'm wondering if anyone adds charcoal and at what time? 4? 5? 6? hours in? start in the chimney first? or have you modified your charcoal basket to hold more? looking for any ideas here because this was a real problem in the winter, i actually had to finish a butt before i wanted to because the PBC just didnt have any more fuel in it.