Bubbles over Vents?

Ryezza

On all of my long brisket/butt cooks, I've been using a drip pan with liquid (often apple juice, depends on what I'm doing) sitting on the plate setter. Besides catching the drippings and keeping the inside of the egg moist, I use the mixture of the juice in the pan and the drippings as the base for a pretty legit sauce that I serve along with the meat.

I've noticed that the steam from the liquid in the drip pan collects on the chimney cap, and sometimes forms a bubble over the air vent. In some cases, the bubble seems to disrupt the air flow and the temp starts to drop in the dome. It's not a big deal if I'm keeping tabs on the cook because I can just pop the bubble and wipe the moisture off the cap, but it's a problem if I'm doing a "set it and forget it" cook. I have a Smokeware chimney cap that I use most of the time, but I've observed this phenomenon with both the stock BGE chimney cap and the aftermarket cap (although it happens more frequently with the stock cap).

Anyone else observed this? Am I doing something wrong? Is there anything I can do to prevent it? Thanks all, hope you enjoy your Saturday!

The_Stache

This is worthless without pictures!! :-)

pgprescott

That's crazy! Do you put dish soap in the drip pan? I'm kidding of course, but I've never heard of such a thing. 

Ryezza

No soap, just apple juice most of the time.

If it happens today I'll snap a shot. Another example of the phenomenon: if I lift up the top lid of the Smokeware cap in the middle of the cook, some juice drips down the side of the cap - I just did this a minute ago.

For the other folks that use a drip pan, do you not get any moisture on the chimney cap? Seems odd that this would only happen to me...

Ryezza

Couple pics in case it helps to explain - the butt that I've currently got going with the drip pan of apple juice underneath, and a shot of the Smokeware cap where you can kind of make out some drips from where the liquid ran down from the top of the cap.

Ryezza

Bubbles aside (I still have no clue how that's happening, and I'm interested in input if anyone else has experienced this!), I was pretty pleased with how this cook turned out...

SkinnyV

Interested in the sauce. I just did a packer and the drippings is pretty much all grease. What do you mix it with, pics.?

Ryezza

@SkinnyV we (my wife is the one that's gotten this down to a science) let the meat drip into the dip pan of apple juice, then after the cook we put what's left into a fat separator to get the chunks out and use that as a base. Then we basically follow this recipe with some tweaks (ie. you obviously don't need to add liquid smoke): 

http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/canning/apple-bbq-sauce-for-canning/

Once the sauce reduces down, we pull the pork, serve half of it with no sauce, and throw the other half in the crockpot with the sauce for about 15-20 min and serve it as well.

I'll post pics of the sauce next time we do a cook!

Toxarch

Are you replacing the applesauce with the drippings/apple juice?

Ryezza

@Toxarch sorry, didn't see your question until now. We replace most of the applesauce with the drippings/apple juice mixture in the drip pan.