I’m transitioning from a Weber Smokey Mountain. I can’t accommodate a full ceramic due to my living situation, so I ended up with a Kamado Kettle Joe. I spatchcocked a chicken as a test run with lump and had a great cook at 225. Overall good experience with some smoke/grease leak due to lack of gasket and losing charcoal with the large gaps on the bottom – nothing you haven’t read about elsewhere.
Today, it’s pork butt time and the first hour was cruising at 260 (top vent opened one click, bottom vent 1 finger). It must have hit some wood because it jumped to 310F and I had to reduce the bottom vent to BARELY cracked. This helped and was able to get down to 280F.
I still think this is too high – especially for brisket in the future! Any advice for maintaining 225F? I loaded the firebox with lump charcoal and 3 blocks of cherry. Is this high temp due to ceramic fire box?
by njnets05