Post
by WyomingLawDog » July 24th, 2016, 2:56 pm
Ok, I have it dialed in now. Like Frank said it takes awhile on natural draft. When I first started using it, it was taking me 2 hours to get up to temp (275) that I smoke at. Then I tried RC idea of putting some hot charcoal in a metal bowl in the smoker, it cut it down a little but what I found out is it does not get enough oxygen from natural flow to keep the charcoal in the bowl going that is inside the smoker CC, so it goes out. The smoker does hold temp great on it's own but was wanting to get it up to temp quicker, so I bought a cyber-Q for it. The way I do it now is I start a chimney full of charcoal, once it is all going good, takes about 15min for the whole chimney to get red, then I dump half of it in the charcoal chute and immediately dump charcoal to the top of the chimney and close the door. Then I dump the other half in a metal bowl and put it in the CC of the smoker, 30 min it is up to 275 and I pull the bowl out of the CC and put the Q in the smoker. Now I monitor my smoker temp from my smart phone in the AC of my house, love it! Stays with 2-3 degrees up or down with my cyber-Q. Like I said it holds temp great on it's own once it is up to temp. So that is how I do it now, the fan of the cyber=Q give the smoker plenty of oxygen to keep the charcoal going in the bowl inside the CC and it just boosts the smoker up to temp that much quicker. That means more sleep for me at competitions (YA), I am starting to compete in 1 month for my first competition. The smoker also recovers really fast with the cyber-Q after opening the door.