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Low 'n Slow is killing my marriage

Unknown
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
I have tried to do low 'n slow butts two times since I have had my BGE. Each time the fire went out in the night and when I restarted it at some unknown time in the early morning, it jumped up to 320.[p]I can get the egg to stabilize at a dome time of about 280, but lower than that I have problems. This seems to be a common malady on the forum. Maybe we need a support group. [p]My wife says she is tired of her husband crawling back into be smelling like smoke and mumbling about his "poor butt". She is threatening to leave me out with the Egg.[p]Any suggestions? Would a bbq guru help? Getting rid of the wife seems a pretty drastic option.[p]By the way, both times the meat that finally came out was really good.

Comments

  • sprinter
    sprinter Posts: 1,188
    Ham 'n Egg,[p]Without a bit more detail of your process I'll simply give you what I do for a low and slow overnight.[p]First thing is I fill the firebox COMPLETELY full, all the way to the top of the firering. Get it good and full. I then light the lump, get about a baseball or so size fire going, then start to stabilize the temp at whatever I want it at, typically 240 or so. Get it good and stable, then throw on the meat and watch it again for a bit, it will take a bit to come back to temp. Once there I let it go. I've never had a fire go out on me overnight and typically get burns of 20 or more hours if I need it.[p]Just my methods but its never failed me yet. The key to me is getting PLENTY of lump in there for it to burn.[p]If this is what you are already doing, you may want to try and light a couple of small fires around the edges rather than one in the middle of the pile. The ones in the middle typically burn a hole in the pile of lump and the edge lump isnt burned at all. With plenty of lump thats not a problem. With a shorter pile this may cause trouble.[p]Troy
  • Tim M
    Tim M Posts: 2,410
    rcheck.jpg
    <p />Ham 'n Egg,
    Let me ask, what does the lump charcoal pile look like when you see that it has gone out? Often it will be the center has burned and the outside ring has not. This is what happens when the lump does not "fall in" on the burning fire and it will starve itself for fuel. I don't think the bbq guru would solve that problem. Another problem is the fuel ran out. I have said for years that you can't have too much, but you can have too little. Fill it up and avaoid the fine pieces and the bottom of a bag as that just cuts off air flow.[p]Here is what I use. It is a dual probe Maverick or Remote Check thermometer. Once I get it stabilized I put one probe in the dome hole and one in the meat. I wake up several times a night and I can easily look at the display which switches back and forth between the two probes. You MUST set the alarm really high on the dome probe because the heat does fluctuate a lot and that dang alarm at 2am is not going to make anyone happy. The alarm will not go off if the temp drops - only if a high temp is reached so it won't warn of a cold cooker, but you can eaily see if it is getting lower and lower.[p]Good luck[p]Tim

  • Ohio Ed
    Ohio Ed Posts: 33
    Ham 'n Egg,
    As a newby, I found using the Elder Ward method of fire building very helpful in addition to the suggestions given below. Its only a matter of three items;fuel,oxygen and heat to keep a fire going. To go out you have to remove one of the three. I use Wicked Good Charcoal B&B Select and have found it to be one of the longest burning lump. See the Naked Wizz web site for data.
    Ed

    [ul][li]Elder Ward Fire Building[/ul]
  • QBabe
    QBabe Posts: 2,275
    Ham 'n Egg,[p]Ok, first, I've never had a fire go out overnight, so can only let you know what I do that seems to work for me. I fill the cooker up with lump to the top of the fire box and about half way up into the fire ring. I usually light in the center with a weber starter cube. Once the cube is out, close my vents down to about an inch on the lower vent and maybe 1/4th of an inch on the slide part of the daisy. I add my smoking wood, platesetter, drip pan and grid (sprayed with Pam). At that point, my temps will drop back to less than 200° and smoke will be billowing out of the top vent. I usually wait until the smoke thins out to a nice blue stream and watch for my temps to get back up in the 225° range. That's when I start closing the inch in the bottom vent to more like 1/8th an inch and the slide daisy is closed and the petals mostly closed to maintain my 250°. Keep in mind that every cooker acts differently, so my measurements might not work for you. [p]I usually let everything stabalize for at least 30 minutes and then I put the meat in. Again, the dome temp drops back down so you have to re-stabalize things once the meat is on. Then, I usually keep an eye on it for about the next two hours before I even consider going to bed. I use a Maverick ET-73, so I have one probe in the meat and one in the dome. My receiver and transmitter won't talk to each other if I take it back to the bedroom, but the couch on the family room is just inside the sliding glass door from the cookers, so that's usually where I catch a little rest when I'm doing an overnighter. I'll drift off for a while, but sleep pretty lightly and usually wake up a couple times, glance at the receiver, make sure everything's where it's supposed to be, and drift off again. There have been times where one time I'll wake up and the 250° has dropped down to 239°...I usually leave it alone, cause it'll often come back up on its own. When I notice that the 250° has dropped to 198°, then I get up and open the vents a tad...[p]Basically, I think the reason I've never had one go out, is that I don't just "set it and forget it", but instead wake up a couple of times and check. Now, usually, I could've just "set it and forget it" because I don't do much tweaking most times. But, it does happen, and then I'm glad that I kept an eye on it...[p]Just my $.02....keep trying![p]Tonia
    :~)[p]P.S. Oh, yeah about the wife....get her a small egg of her own so she smells like smoke too!

  • TRex
    TRex Posts: 2,714
    Ham 'n Egg,[p]I feel your pain. Today I'm washing the "smokey smelling sheets" as my dejected too-long-in-the-danger-zone butt sits on the counter. To eat or not to eat, that is the question. I've heard both sides of the story - maybe it will come down to how hungry I am tonight.[p]TRex
  • WilliamH
    WilliamH Posts: 57
    I got the E-temp BBQ Guru. It's simple and just keeps the temp steady. I wasn't looking for something to monitor my meat temp. Good luck and remember flowers are always good.
  • Jawjajoe
    Jawjajoe Posts: 51
    Ham 'n Egg,
    2 words man, bbg guru.[p]Joe

  • Ohio Ed
    Ohio Ed Posts: 33
    Ohio Ed,
    Sorry, got the spelling wrong on the Naked Whiz (not Wizz)web site

    [ul][li]Charcoal Reviews[/ul]
  • Ham 'n Egg, listen buddy, a lot of good advise has already been passed your way here and I'll repeat some of it in a moment...first let me say if you haven't heard it already that: you should first try and fix the problem with your BGE before you go and update it or buy new accessories. I had the same problem and it is now clear to me that it was a stupid "foriegn" made band / hinge that caused it and they now have one made in USA (doesn't have a little lever to trip to let lid back down) that actually works. This situation doubled with me because I didn't know what was wrong and continued to use the thing for quite some time before finding out which caused me to also need a new gasket. Now two new methods I use for complete success on low and slo duration is: fill half way up the "fire ring" , and lite one place in the rear on the lump on top of it and when it approaches 225 cut the damper back to stabilize. Quarantee this will fix it.

  • StumpBaby
    StumpBaby Posts: 320
    Ham 'n Egg,[p]Other folks will address the problem of your fire going out...so I won't touch that..but I found even when that is fixed, I still get up at night and check it, which bothers the majeebers out of the wife..and she sure let it cause some friction between us..so much so that I had to figure out a wat to deal with it. I mean..in the grand scheme of things life is too damned short to be troubled over the smell of smoke..or getting up once in the middle of the night..right ?[p]So here's what I do...to get her to stop complaining about the smell of smoke or gettin woken up once during the night.[p]One word. Underwear..period. Without her knowin it..you get yourself into her underwear drawer and snatch the best pair you can find..one of her favorites..skip the ones that have been worn too much..cause chances are good there's been somethin in there at one point or another..that you just don't care to know about. This is the reason why I never get mad at the wife when she is always spendin hard earned money on new underwear..I mean the way I see it..it'd be no different than if'n you was real clumsy and you cut yourself real good...it was takin forever and a day to heal..and you was goin broke buyin bandaids.[p]Now, a couple of days before you wanna smoke something...you get up early....before the wife does..and you put some workboots on..only workboots mind you..and then you go into the bathroom..now this is where it gets a bit tricky..and the meanin of findin the best underwear becomes real clear...you take that underwear..and you stick it on your head..and not just on the top of your head..pull it down..get creative with it..sometimes I stretch out one of the leg holes so that both eyes can see right out..sometimes I'll skrunch them up so that each eye has its own view out a leg hole..sometimes I'll pull them down just to the top of my eyes in the front..but way down in the back..making sure huge chunks of hair are sticking out the leg holes.[p]Now is the fun part...what you gotta do is stand in front of the mirror..and do something that gets her attention, wakes her up..and makes her come and see what's going on. Be careful..you don't wanna scare her...or it just won't work..and you don't want to give yourself away either..I mean if you made a noise like you was happy..then she may confuse that with somethin else you do in there when she's sleepin..and your bound to get really caught doin it at some point..and you'll pay for that ..trust me..and it won't just be lack of soft soap in the house from there on out..I'll tell you that. [p]What do I do ? Good question, though it might only work for me..but I'll stand there proudly starin in the mirror..with that underwear and big boots on....puff out my chest..and do one of the following...[p]In a low deep gutteral voice say..over and over again..."Hose her down boys...hose her down"[p]In a light voice..with an english accent..pretending to peer back and forth.....say this over and over again "Release the hounds...release the house"[p]In a scruffy manly voice..holding both hands up to your ears..say this over and over again.."Pilot to bombadier..pilot to bombadier" [p]In a light albeit manly voice..wiggle back and forth..and shake up and down a bit..and repeat the following "Brown eggs are local eggs... and local eggs are fresh"[p]That last one is one of my favorites...[p]Anyway..soon after you start this, the wife will wake up..wonder what the heck is goin on and eventually enter the room. Be prepared for some interesting reaction..but don't say anything right away..pretend that you don't hear her at first..and only after she gets in your line of sight..which I'm sure won't be long..do you recognize that she's in the room. At this point, you want to pretend that you were sleep walking..you gotta do some real good actin..but it's all in the name of good bbq, so deal with it cause it has to be done.[p]Repeat this for the next couple of days, til the day you want to smoke that meat. THAT day..act totally normal, unless of course wearin womens underwear on your head IS the norm for you..then..you should spend this day acting totally abnormal. I'll tell you, the fact that you didn't do any sleepwalking this day is gonna make the little women sooo happy..she just ain't gonna care that you're gonna be up that night worryin about your smoked meat.[p]This works wonders, and it's totally fun, allows you to wear womens underwear on top of your head..to act like a total loon..to wear workboots in the bathroom plus it's totally free..and it's based solely on one simple pricipal...confusing the enemy. [p]Since I started doing this, the wife never ever complains about me smoking anything overnight, matter of fact, I don't even have to do my own shopping anymore..the first morning I start doing this..she usually comes in later that day with some hunka meat..ready for some serious smoking. [p]ohhh...I just can't wait till I get to smoke something again....after therapy Stump...after therapy. [p]
    Hope this helps.[p]StumpBaby

  • StumpBaby, I can't see my screen, I am laughing so hard. Your best yet, Stump Baby!

  • Ham 'n Egg,
    Please email me directly. I have some suggestions for you.[p]Kelly

  • TRex
    TRex Posts: 2,714
    Tim M,[p]How much did you pay for Maverick?[p]Thanks,[p]TRex
  • Sundown
    Sundown Posts: 2,980
    sprinter,
    I've used the same method you describe for almost 5 years and I can say I've never had a fire go out either. Over the past year I've been using Wicked Good and once it starts burning I don't think it can go out!

  • Tim M
    Tim M Posts: 2,410
    TRex,[p]Yahoo had them on sale years ago for $30 and that was when I bought mine. I only use it when I do butts which is not often.[p]Tim