Party Q first cook and help needed

tulocay

SWMBO got me a Party Q for my birthday recently. Got a chance to try it out Friday - into Sat. Morning. It was an overnight cook for two bone-in boston butts. They weighed approx. 7 lbs each. I injected 4 hours prior and rubbed with a home made rub shortly before putting on the egg. I have a LBGE. Loaded Rockwood all the to the bottom of the plate setter. Placed 4-5 hickory and cherry chunks throughout.

I did what I normally do for a low and slow cook. I lit in two places and let that come to temp for 10 min with the bottom wide open and top open (at the hinge). Put the plate setter in and the stock grate. Then proceeded to hook up the Party Q. Had the grate temp set at 245*. It started out lower than that. It quickly came up to 245, then over shot that by 30*. At that point the dome thermo read 300*. I let that ride for a while to stabilize, then put the butts on. As always the butts brought the temp down. Normally my egg takes over an hour to reach the temp prior to putting the meat on. The Party Q kicked in and has me back to temp in approx. 30 min. I was then right back at 300-310 dome.

I went to bed and let it ride thinking the difference between the dome temp and the grate would equalize after a while.

I had put the butts on at 9:00 Friday night. Woke up and decided to check on the egg about 7:00 Sat morning. Party Q was locked in reading 245. Dome temp was approx. 275. Decided to check the meat and to my surprise, one of the butts was probing like butter and reading 200*. The other one wasn't quite ready yet.

The butts turned out great. I guess you could call this a semi-turbo? I did not expect the dome to read between 35-50 degrees higher than the grate throughout the entire cook. And yes, I recently calibrated my dome thermo.

the other surprising thing was when I looked at my lump today. I had nearly burned through the entire load of Rockwood. That a shock to me since I have gotten 23 hours on the same Rockwood (without any controller).

Anyone else have similar issues? I am now concerned that I can't use the Party Q and expect a cook in the 22+ hour range.

Thanks for any advice.

tarheelmatt

I always thought there was a difference between grate and dome.  When using the Party Q/ Maverick combo, I don't really pay attention to the dome.  

Crimsongator

If you want a cook that long, set your party Q to 210 and your dome will read 240ish and you'll get what you want.....