Smoking at 225 Degrees

Medic72072

I am having some problems when smoking say briskets or pork shoulders at 225 degrees.  I have no problem maintaining the temperature, and I use the plate setter for the indirect heating.  I start the fire nice and slow and bring it up to temperature and get good steady heat and smoke.  It seems after maybe 3 or 4 hours the meat temperature really starts or maybe stops climbing.  I don't notice any smoke coming from the wood chunks in my egg.  I smoked a brisket today that was 6.5 pounds and after 10.5 hours the internal temp was only 164 degrees.  I opened the dampers more and took the daisy wheel off and got the temp up to 300 degrees.  The wood chunks started smoking really well again and finished off the brisket.  I had the bottom damper open around 1.5" and the daisy wheel open anywhere from 1/2-1/4.  It seems like the fire was just going out and retaining heat in the egg and not cooking the meat.  Anyone have any suggestions what i should do or am doing wrong?  Oh I use BGE natural lump charcoal.  Thanks.

Mike

LDD

I think 225 is always not so easy to maintain... 250 seems to be the sweet spot. at 225... it will take much longer for the brisket to cook then at 250, because your grate temp will be down about 15-20 degrees. effectively taking a REALLY long time to get it the 190-200 range.

Tillerman

Agreed 250 works well. Also, remember that a large piece of meat will hover in that 160-165 range for HOURS before finally submitting...