Two times in a row, ran out of lump - Advice Please

kl8ton

I have been egging for 6 years.  I have done several low and slows.  The last two have me somewhat baffled. 

So the second to last cook i just thought was a fluke, then this past weekend it happened again and I now think there is something to it.

Since I did my last low and slows, I changed a lot on the egg and don't know what factor is contributing to this the most.

I used to use the DW, stock fire grate, GFS lump (Royal Oak), no gasket.

Now I have the Rutland gasket, Smokeware chimney, KAB, and Rockwood charcoal.

To set the scene:

I can only attest to last weekends cook as I was keeping a closer eye on the process:

Friday night
6PM Completely cleaned egg, removed all internal components, shop vac ash out, reassembled
630 PM Filled with charcoal to bottom of platesetter (legs up) and lit with Mapp gas torch in center of pile.
640 PM Added Drip tray of hot water and grate, closed dome.
7PM Checked dome temp  - 250 degrees
8PM checked dome temp - 250 degrees
9PM put 4 pork shoulders on (36lbs)
10PM checked dome temp 250 degrees
11PM checked dome temp 205 degrees (all these with smokeware dome thermo) and then went to bed
8:30 AM meat temp at 168 degrees dome temp 215 degrees - i open lower vent another 1/8"
9:00 AM dome temp 200.  I open egg for first time in 12 hours and peek down into coals.  I am on my last 5-8 crubles and KAB is pretty much entirely visible.  I remove meat, grid, pan, plate setter, KAB, dump coals into container, load egg to the top with fresh coals, dump hot coals on top, let burn 10 minutes, close lid, let stabalize for 1/2 hour, put meat back on after foiling it. 
10 AM egg stable at 300 degrees dome to speed up finish.  First butt off at 2PM, and the other three about on every hour each hour after that.  

I don't get it.  On my low and slows before this, I could run 20 hours and have enough left for a high temp cook the next day.  Is it the Rockwood?  I am ASSUMING the egg stayed at 250 or just below all night.  Pulled pork turned out great!



Thoughts?

Darby_Crenshaw

If the dome thermo is right (not reading falsely low) then the lump has to be the issue, no?

if the fuel is used up, but the temp never gets out of control, then the lump sounds like it's less dense than usual

Thatgrimguy

I will say that you were doing 4 butts on a cold ace night. That eats up more lump. Are you comparing apples to apples. A low and slow on a warm night with one butt won't eat the amount of lump that it takes in snow with a full load.

NPHuskerFL

W/out all the data it's impossible to pinpoint the problem. 8.5 hrs of missing temps whether they dip or spike. Typically as the lump falls during the burning process it will spike a little in temp. The only way to know for sure is to have that info. Also why wait 3 hrs to put the product inside the egg. The egg is clean with fresh everything and you're burning RW so the smoke is good within (Max) 30minutes & temp should be real close to being stabilized by then also. A LBGE loaded the way you described can easily go 22-28 hrs at L&S temps. 

WeberWho

It could possibly be the air flow around the platesetter, drip pan, and meat. If it doesn't have adequate air flow around it the egg doesn't get real happy. I had the same issue 3-4 years ago when I was using too big of a drip pan with a platesetter for a turkey. The lump would go out even though it looked like sufficient enough air around the sides. I switched to a smaller drip pan and worked without issue. 

Ladeback69

I agree, could be lump, try a different bag and colder temps with winds has caused me issues in my timing at times and burned more lump.   The advantage is I have XL.  Water pan really isn't necessary with an Egg so I don't mess with it, because if it runs out the temp will spike.  You might want to also think of getting that gasket on, but others on here run without one, but I don't know how they do in the cold.

lousubcap

As above, if your thermo is correct, then you are either going thru the lump at a higher rate or you aren't loading nearly as much as before the KAB.  I have no experience with the KAB so don't know if that's a possibility.  FWIW-

DaveRichardson

Data, like Blake said above, is the key.  Need more info.  My large can go, like he said, 22-28 hrs on a load of RW - Rib Cook @ 5 hours followed by a boston butt a day later for 16 hrs.

Once that ceramic mass gets to temp, its slow to change, as we all know.  Now if you had some huge, flat chunks in there, the collapse as it cooks off could cut back on the overall volume of lump.

And if it was from leaking at the base-dome interface due to no gasket, then it should have been a whole lot hotter as well.

If it were me, first step is checking my dome thermo calibration.  Followed by checking my firebox and ring to make sure there is an even gap around the side of the box and ring compared to the inner walls of the egg.

nolaegghead

Assuming you're temp is accurate and you filled up the space below the plate setter (not just a pyramid, but filled all the way), I would postulate the particular batch of lump you used (and this might explain why it happened earlier for the first time) is over-carbonized.  AKA less dense, lighter, fewer BTUs.

Legume

lousubcap said:

As above, if your thermo is correct, then you are either going thru the lump at a higher rate or you aren't loading nearly as much as before the KAB.  I have no experience with the KAB so don't know if that's a possibility.  FWIW-

I was thinking that as well - not sure how much KAB reduces volume, also I thought I read some people put them on top of fire grate, others instead of fire grate.  I'm not familiar with KAB enough to know, but I think three good ideas surfaced here 1) density of lump from what you used before, 2) external temp, 3) volume difference of load. 

saluki2007

Did you use a drip pan that large before?  Have you always used water?

Jeepster47

The size of the RW bag is a constant and they are filled by weight, not volume.  Although RO jumps around in the size of their bags, they also are filled based on weight.  Since one doesn't see an overstuffed bag and then a half empty bag, the density from bag-to-bag within either brand must be, with in a small percentage, constant.

Thus, if it is the lump, all you need to do is weigh an equal volume of RO and RW to see the potential difference in burn time.

The only fly in the ointment is the assumption that RO is carbonized to the same level (80%) as RW.

When testing the burn rate of lump in a large, my data showed that RW would achieve a 250 degree temp for 25 hours ... that was down in the 20~40 degree ambient range.  I cooked one butt for a little over 17 hours and had approximately 3.5 lbs of lump remaining.

Of course, you could do two equivalent cooks in a row where one is powered by RO and the other by RW.  Weigh the lump before and after and that will answer your concern about lump being the difference.

RRP

I'm going to throw out a new observation. For only being 3 months old your Rutland gasket is quite dirty and junked up. It looks worst than my 12 year old Rutland. Have you noticed leakage around your gasket? I wonder if you should loosen your dome bolts and make sure the dome is resting on the base. I'll be glad to post some pointers on how to do that.

nolaegghead

Admittedly, heat load was high - cool ambient temp, lots of meat (mostly water), water pan....

bhedges1987

I ran out of lump on my medium at about 12 hours in multiple times.... Hasn't happened yet on my large. Not even close actually.  Maybe I had bad lump or a leak somewhere on my medium.

Darby_Crenshaw

As others suggest too, yeah, The water heat sink is a possible cause. You can have a much hotter (fuel-hungry) fire and still hover at 250-dome than you can when you run without a water pan. 

Lose the water pan. No need. 

kl8ton

Thanks for all the input everyone.  There are certainly some things to think about.  

@NPHuskerFL - One reason I wanted to wait at least an hour was to make sure temp was stable before introducing 36lbs of cold meat.    The other reason was I was bathing, 6 kids, reading them stories, putting them to bed, putting them back to bed, etc.    

I did not want to do that much meat at once on the large.  Certainly an XL sized cook.  I guess I carried my waterpan habbits from the horizontal offset smoker i ran before the egg.  I just don't like the drippings sizzling and smoking, but if it doesn't matter, I will get rid of the water.  The drip pan was quite large.

Also, I know that missing the data from the overnight could shed some light on things, but I haven't purchased anything to monitor and report and/or control temps.  

I was figuring the temps stayed pretty stable overnight since the smallest butt took 18 hours.  I was guessing that if the dome ran into the 300-400 range overnight, that they would be done first thing in the morning.  I will try again with one butt, smaller drip pan, no water and see what happens.  

@RRP I though that my gasket was looking a little on the dirty side as well.  I never see some coming out where the lid meets the dome, but would also be open to suggestions on re-centering the dome.  With the plate setter, the grid is right at gasket level and the butts were touching the edge of the dome.  I think this may have allowed pork juices to wick into the gasket if that is possible.  Is there a way to clean the gasket? 

Again, thanks all for the ideas and input.  This forum and the members are great!

RRP

kl8ton said:

@RRP I though that my gasket was looking a little on the dirty side as well.  I never see some coming out where the lid meets the dome, but would also be open to suggestions on re-centering the dome.  With the plate setter, the grid is right at gasket level and the butts were touching the edge of the dome.  I think this may have allowed pork juices to wick into the gasket if that is possible.  Is there a way to clean the gasket? 

Clean it? No - not possible, nor would you want to. Where I was coming from was the uniformity clear around your gasket of the soiling from the escaping creosote and particles of grease that is carried as well. That is why I thought maybe your dome and base were not coming together, but resting apart. See, I'm coming from the belief your temperature ran higher overnight than what you believe and you simply burnt up your lump.

fishlessman

its extremely hard to get a real temp reading with all that meat and water pan in there, one big cook i noticed i had a 1000 degree inferno down low and a dome temp holding 200 degrees. it burnt lump up extremely fast

lousubcap

I notice where you are planning to discard the water pan.  However, if you use an air-gapped (off the platesetter) drip pan that will greatly reduce any drippings from smoking or sizzling.  FWIW-

kl8ton

@lousubcap
Makes sense.  Thanks for the tip.

DaveRichardson

36 pounds of meat!!!!  Maybe the meats were touching the thermometer?

FlashkaBob

Try this experiment. With the KAB in place, fill the egg to the point that you always do with lump. Now, empty the egg again into a 5 gal pail or garbage can. Remove the KAB and dump the lump back in. What is the difference in lump level? Would it be an inch lower? 25%? The KAB is partially designed to help increase the airflow through the lump by (1) creating an air gap between the lump and the firebox. and (2) the convenient removal of the lump to shake out the ash and chips that impede the airflow. Both of these things will cause the lump to burn faster. The fact that you have a 35 pound mass of meat on the grill will cause you to experience lower overall temps at the dome than is actually in the egg. You mentioned that you thought the temp was right because it took 18 hours for one to be done. Theoretically it should have taken a lot longer for the meat to be done at 250* because just 1 butt can sometimes take the 18 hour cook time at that temp whether it is cooked on an egg, in an oven or in 1 sous vide bath. The heat from the burning lump has to be evenly distributed between all 4 butts. It takes a lot longer to roast a whole pig than it does to cook a sausage. Just my thoughts FWIW.