Is 225 just impossible without a gizmo?

findbenjamin

I've got a smokeware chimney cap, almost entirely closed (the thinnest of slits), and my bottom vent almost fully closed, and yet I'm pulling a pit temp of 244-258° (Redicheck 2-probe). The wind is a bit fluky today, which may be contributing to it?  I'm trying not to "chase the temp" but the last spike had me in the 260s (yikes).  Any suggestions on maintaining a more consistent pit temp would be appreciated.  

Set up:
All fresh lump
a few pieces of Apple
6lbs of Butt
Platesetter 
Drip pan
Cast iron grid

Started fire in one spot, dead center, and placed on setter, pan, grid, ran both vents wide open to just over 200, dialed back vents to almost closed.  Hit 225.. awesome, after a few hours, temperature consistently rising.  If I close the vents any further back, I fear it'll put the lump out.  Butt is at 153, and I feel like it's in the stall (2° raise in ~ 1.5 hrs)  

bgebrent

Bring your vents down 50 degrees below your target and you can hold 225. 

Eoin

What size Egg? My XL always climbs a bit once the ceramic has warmed up but I can still get it back and hold 225 on the XL and MMX. Do you have air leaks at the bottom vent or the gasket?

Killit_and_Grillit

You can hold 225 easy with practice. Control your fire when it starts and make sure it's stable for a while before taking your eye off it. Don't wait for it to get to temp before slowing it down or it will spike. 

But you are way too worried about that temp for pork butt. You can cook it anywhere from 250-350 with no problems. 

 Very forgiving piece of meat. Pork butts is a great way to practice while learning to control temp. (But the gizmos make it easier sometimes)

slovelad

My two thoughts. 1 I find it harder to get the lower temps with the smokeware cap. 2. Why do you what 225? I find 275 + to give me the best results 

Killit_and_Grillit

slovelad said:

My two thoughts. 1 I find it harder to get the lower temps with the smokeware cap. 2. Why do you what 225? I find 275 + to give me the best results 

Yeah if I am trying to do low temps I put the daisy wheel back on unless it's going to rain 

DoubleEgger

Take the smokeware cap off and see if you can hold 225F with the cast iron daisy. If so, then you've isolated the issue. I had a gen 1 smokeware cap that had enough play between the two pieces that I couldn't hold less than 275 on my medium. I tossed the base section and I just put the top cap on my daisy if a downpour comes. 

jtcBoynton

Where in the world are you? What are the ambient weather conditions?  This time of year my egg starts 100-110º without any fire.  Don't think I could hold a stable 225º if I tried.  The rising temp may be caused by direct sunlight adding more radiant heat as the day progresses.

Don't know of any reason from a culinary point that you want to cook at 225º.  A 250º temp is much easier to hold in your egg and the results will not be distinguishable from cooking at 225º.

ColtsFan

I've always been in the 275 club myself. Only because I can pretty much set it and forget it. Anything less is work, in my experiences 

jtcBoynton

I can hold 240º and above with my large.  Except for increases due to solar radiation increases during the day (sometimes I keep the egg shaded so this isn't a problem).  I normally also cook at 275º or above because it allows for getting anything done in time for supper without having to get up in the middle of the night to start a cook.

theyolksonyou

All 225 gets you is a longer cook. 250-260 is fine. But, yes you can. Even with the Smokeware. Just don't know why you would want to. 

Legume

findbenjamin said:

Started fire in one spot, dead center, and placed on setter, pan, grid, ran both vents wide open to just over 200, dialed back vents to almost closed.  Hit 225.. awesome, after a few hours, temperature consistently rising.  If I close the vents any further back, I fear it'll put the lump out.  Butt is at 153, and I feel like it's in the stall (2° raise in ~ 1.5 hrs)  

Sounds like you overshot and didn't see it in the temp until the egg and platesetter had fully heated up, probably the butt also.  Wide open until you get within 25 degrees probably left you with too little runway to slow down.  If you want to bleed some of the heat off now, put a bowl of cold water in there, but you're probably better off just leaving it be.  Agree with the other comments re not needing to run at 225, but if you do want to in future, gradually close down your vents starting at 150 and ease on up to 225.  It will take an hour, if faster, your ceramics probably aren't caught up.

gdenby

You can get stable temps around 225, but as others have said, why?

I can hold pretty stable down to 190, assuming my gaskets are good, and dome is aligned right. For 225, once the egg ceramics are heated, the vents will be all but shut. Really, so closed that it will seem like the lump will go out. It won't. In fact, if the daisy is nice and clean, that may allow too much air out.

Wolfie51sb

My experience tells me that the only difference between cooking at 225 and 250 is that 225 is a pain to try to maintain. The results are the same, and it's much easier to hold a steady 250. 

One of the best pieces of advice ever posted on this forum is "don't chase temps."

findbenjamin

Thanks for all the input.  I'm going to let it run the course.  I've since got it knocked down to about 235, so I'll just let it be.  I'll try going for the daisy wheel next time around, and damping down the vents earlier on.  I'd read 225 from various different sources, so it seemed as good a place to start as any.  I'm thinking I'll try for holding 250 on my "Brexit 1776" cook, as I've family coming over, and don't want to be babysitting the temp as much, and it's been a bit of work.

Interesting thought about not giving enough runway to not overshoot the temp.  It did spike to 330, but then rapidly collapsed again, so I'll log that one away too.

lousubcap

Good advice above-it seems when it really doesn't matter if the temp decides to climb I can hold around 200+/- (no controller)  when drying the fall hot pepper harvest.  I use lots of small pieces of lump and build a pyramid-like pile, light in the center and start to slow it down around 140-150*F.  Takes baby-sitting for a few hours to get it there. 
I never try to run that low with a protein cook as addressed above.  FWIW-
Edit:  here's a thread where I documented the low temp pepper drying event from last fall-FYI-
The annual low BGE temp hi-heat habanero smoke down  

findbenjamin

jtcBoynton said:

Where in the world are you? What are the ambient weather conditions?  This time of year my egg starts 100-110º without any fire.  Don't think I could hold a stable 225º if I tried.  The rising temp may be caused by direct sunlight adding more radiant heat as the day progresses.

Don't know of any reason from a culinary point that you want to cook at 225º.  A 250º temp is much easier to hold in your egg and the results will not be distinguishable from cooking at 225º.

Delaware.  ~92 degrees, humid, but not Florida humid, and a slight, flukey breeze.    

findbenjamin

slovelad said:

My two thoughts. 1 I find it harder to get the lower temps with the smokeware cap. 2. Why do you what 225? I find 275 + to give me the best results 

Really. I seemingly have more problems with the daisy, but then I've been mostly higher temp grilling and opening the dome more in between, and the shifting (even with the daisy positioned hinge toward handle) was driving me batty

Legume

Smokeware cap works great for me, once it was gunked up a bit it sealed even better.  I don't think you said what size egg you have.  I have an XL and it doesn't fight me on low temps when I ease into them.

findbenjamin

Legume said:

Smokeware cap works great for me, once it was gunked up a bit it sealed even better.  I don't think you said what size egg you have.  I have an XL and it doesn't fight me on low temps when I ease into them.

Of all the things to forget!  It's a large.  

findbenjamin

Eoin said:

What size Egg? My XL always climbs a bit once the ceramic has warmed up but I can still get it back and hold 225 on the XL and MMX. Do you have air leaks at the bottom vent or the gasket?

Large.  Gasket should be good, as I did the dollar-bill test (ok, it was a $10, but it's what I had ) Is there a good way to test the bottom vent?  I had to rehab the egg as it had spent a bit too long at someone's beach house who didn't appreciate what they had - the grid was too far gone, as was the gasket.  I had to wire wheel the nest, and reapply some nice high-temp black spray paint.  I got a screen from the local dealer as there wasn't one in this (don't know if it wasn't always a standard?).  If the bottom vent is leaking - silicone caulk? 

OhioEgger

The cooking temp advice you got is all good, but to answer your original question, I've never had a problem holding 225°F in my Large, except on the windiest days. No Smokeware, just the original daisy wheel top. 
Yes, the top and bottom vents will be practically completely closed, but don't worry about that -- never had the fire go out and I've done 225 cooks for six hours or more.

blind99

With these settings my large holds around 250, very stable. Chasing lower temps is iffy for me. 

stompbox

Check for leaks.

blasting

DoubleEgger said:

I tossed the base section and I just put the top cap on my daisy 

jtcBoynton

findbenjamin said:

jtcBoynton said:

Where in the world are you? What are the ambient weather conditions?  This time of year my egg starts 100-110º without any fire.  Don't think I could hold a stable 225º if I tried.  The rising temp may be caused by direct sunlight adding more radiant heat as the day progresses.

Don't know of any reason from a culinary point that you want to cook at 225º.  A 250º temp is much easier to hold in your egg and the results will not be distinguishable from cooking at 225º.

Delaware.  ~92 degrees, humid, but not Florida humid, and a slight, flukey breeze.    

What really seems to matter a lot is the amount of solar radiation hitting the ceramics.  You are hotter than than here and the humidity isn't too bad right now.  But you can feel your skin start to fry as soon as you expose it to direct sun.  Its much easier to hold low temps in more northern latitudes.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

slovelad said:

My two thoughts. 1 I find it harder to get the lower temps with the smokeware cap. 2. Why do you what 225? I find 275 + to give me the best results 

This. What's wrong with 250-275? 225 is a made up number. Unless you really understand why 225 is better than anything else (It is not) then I would say let your cooker of choice settle in where it likes to be. I dont do a lot of low and slow on my eggs anymore but when i did, 260 was the number. 

HeavyG

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

slovelad said:

My two thoughts. 1 I find it harder to get the lower temps with the smokeware cap. 2. Why do you what 225? I find 275 + to give me the best results 

This. What's wrong with 250-275? 225 is a made up number. Unless you really understand why 225 is better than anything else (It is not) then I would say let your cooker of choice settle in where it likes to be. I dont do a lot of low and slow on my eggs anymore but when i did, 260 was the number. 

225 is a made up number but that is the number that for decades has defined "low 'n slow".

Is it really better than any other made up number? Beats me. I've never bothered with 225 as I have always been satisfied with my higher made up numbers.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

HeavyG said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

slovelad said:

My two thoughts. 1 I find it harder to get the lower temps with the smokeware cap. 2. Why do you what 225? I find 275 + to give me the best results 

This. What's wrong with 250-275? 225 is a made up number. Unless you really understand why 225 is better than anything else (It is not) then I would say let your cooker of choice settle in where it likes to be. I dont do a lot of low and slow on my eggs anymore but when i did, 260 was the number. 

225 is a made up number but that is the number that for decades has defined "low 'n slow".

Is it really better than any other made up number? Beats me. I've never bothered with 225 as I have always been satisfied with my higher made up numbers.

That number has been defined as low n slow for bbq cooking in offset pits. Everyone seems to want to equate that to Kamado cooking. It's totally different. 

lousubcap

@The Cen-Tex Smoker - is the dishwasher designed to run in the 225*F range or higher?  

HeavyG

A KBQ will easily run 225-ish. It will max out around 400-ish.