Hello! I’m doing my first overnight pork butt and noticed that temp started dropping after about 5 hours. I’m new to this and think I am doing something wrong. Any suggestions?
- I have 2 8lbs bone in pork shoulders in
- I’m using Jealous Devil lump charcoal
- Double indirect setup with slow roller on Classic Joe 3
- I added lumps of charcoal mostly in the center center and center back of the basket, leaving some space in front and sides for airflow
- I stabilized the temp to 200. I think I should have gotten the grill hotter
- Bottom vent setting was at one finger and top just a bit to the left of the first line, by letter M
- When I woke up and saw temp dropping, I opened it up and saw there were plenty of lumps lit and plenty to go, but they were not as close to each other.
- It’s been about 6 hours since I readjusted and now I’m starting to open up top vent more to get it to 225.
Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks
by elpolymath
6 Comments
It’s fine.
typhur probes are awesome. i would suggest targeting a base line a bit higher than this so if it dips a bit it doesn’t go below 225
Butts usually don’t need overnight like brisket. You don’t have to wrap and hold in low heat so much. I prefer to do my butts prior day, allow to cool and pull it apart.
But you are training up for your brisket. Overnight cooks require lots of charcoal and less attention to piling it up in attempt to direct the burn/airflow. Unless you have really bad small piece charcoal, you are not going to need to plan on airflow through the fuel.
200 is a hard temp to keep IMHO. 225-250 easier. You can direct air control from either bottom or top. I get my top open about 1 notch and use the bottom for fine adjustments. 1/8 th inch to finger width usually works for me.
OP it sounds to me like you’re not filling up your charcoal basket completely. “Leaving some space in the front and sides for airflow”
Fill it up completely. Lump has an irregular shape as it is, so there will be plenty of airflow.
Fill it, light it, leave dome open for 15 minutes without the deflectors in. Stir them around once they’re lit, add your deflectors and grates, close it up and run it wide open until its 50-75 degrees (F) below your target, then close top and bottom halfway. As it gets closer to target keep reducing vents by half. When you hit target your top dome should be barely open and the bottom vent is maybe a finger wide.
I think there is a lot of good advice here already. I’m not sure I saw this one asked or mentioned though. With it being overnight, what did your hourly weather temperature look like? Kamados are much better than cheap, leaky offsets at insulating and maintaining temperatures, but especially for desert dwellers in winter sometimes you need to plan ahead for a huge swing in daytime and nighttime temperature. Been there done that.
It may not be applicable to this cook and others may have already hit the nail on the head, but I figured I could add to the mountain of advice and wisdom you have coming in 🙂
Yeah next time fill the basket completely.
Double indirect goes through charcoal like crazy.
For me the taste difference between double and single indirect isn’t worth all the charcoal I’m burning through.
200 from my research isn’t a great temp for smoking on Kamados. 225-300 has yielded good or even better results it seems.
Best of luck and it’s great when you get to learn and eat tasty food at the same time !