Help! Can't get egg's temperature up

Unknown

I have had a medium egg for a year or so, and enjoyed it, sometimes having to play around to keep temperatures down below 400....somehow the last 3 times I've used it, the temperature never goes above about 300. I cleaned out the ashes; I loaded the charcoal to airhole level, started with a chimney/crumpled newspaper starter; have tried various combinations of maximum open on bottom or less open, and different openings on daisy wheel top. Nothing seems to work.
I added soaked wood for smoking and now it's around 175-200....[p]1. Any clues about what might be keeping temperature down?
2. Should I worry that trying to raise temperature by increasing the openings means that the smoke from the soaked wood curling out of the top and bottom is going to significantly reduce the smoking effect?

Tim M

Too cold?,
If its at 175 now, I would open the bottom vent atleast half way open to all open. With a dasiy top in the open daisy position (not the slide part only the daisy part), the max temp you can get is about 350 so let the temps get up to what you want and then close down the top more to stabilize it. You never mentioned the temp you wanted. You can control it all from the top with the daisy if under 350 deg. How does you grate look? Any blocked holes??[p]Tim

Unknown

Tim M,
Thanks for the quick response...I have the daisy top, not the dual function slide top, and it's all the way open (so I'm doing what you suggested); the bottom is now 3/4 open; the grate has no blocked holes, and I'm now around 225...I would like to get to about 325.

Gfw

Too cold?, take the top off until the temp gets to about 300 and then put it back on - watch until it his 350 and then start closing the top vents. Just my thoughts,

Huck

Too cold?,
could it be that the bird is cooling the air down by the time it gets up to the thermometer? I've noticed that when I've got a really big bird on or lots of meat (did 30+lbs of ham at once one time) the dome temp stays lower than you'd expect. Don't worry, it'll come up as the meat comes up to temp.

Tim M

Huck,[p]I wonder if you both have (had) your dome thermometers touching the birds. That is very possible if you don't have a spacer behind the thermometer to lift the tip higher in the dome and if you have a large bird. The addition of a cold object, ceramic or food, will have a tendency to lower the dome temp as it is absorbing the heat in the Egg, but it won't last long and soon it will overcome the extra mass in there. [p]Tim

Unknown

Huck,
I was a little embarrassed once with a large load of country ribs. The temperature just would not settle down, and finally something made me look at the thermometer probe and guess what? I had managed to spear a rib with the probe! Once I rescued the rib, all went well and my temperature settled down.[p]