Metamorphic said:
Yes mate, i often find my meat can sit at the 'stall' for hours and then Bam, she rises quickly.
Im still trying different charcoal amounts for even stabilization.
how do you do you find what works best?
Any tips much appreciated.
Best way is to fill your firebox all the way up with charcoal. Makes sure there is plenty of it. That way you know your fire will not go out. Then use the vents to control temp. You can always reuse leftover charcoal.
Another thing to watch out for is the size of the charcoal. You need a good balance of large pieces down the bottom and fill the gaps in with medium sized pieces all the way to the top. Then you can add some smaller pieces. Start a small fire in the center at the top and let it burn down.
I've had a couple of occasions where the fire just burned straight down and did not ignite connecting pieces and went out. That is always fun at 4 in the morning
This would be the minimum I would use, Nice and full.
And here is the same amount of charcoal after it had been run for about 20 hours at a low of 208 and a high of about 258F.
Mostly sat at about 230F.
As you can see it did not even use half the fuel in there. But what you can also see is the line the burn took to one side. Hence the importance of plenty of fuel.
As for those 2 pieces they are well and truly done and sitting wrapped in the esky now. Fire did get away a bit (268f at 5.30 am) and they probably cooked a bit more that I wanted the to but pork is very forgiving with these fatty cuts.
Here is a pic of some pork scotch that shows the fat. I made these into ham/bacon so the processing method of these does not melt down the fat as in a low and slow.
