First overnight cook, things went sideways!

conger · March 2022

Hi all,

attempted my first overnight cook last night! Tossed a ~13lb brisket on (large BGE) with my shiny new Smobot. Got the egg up to 250, put the brisket on around 9:20pm and called it a night. Woke up about 4:30, and saw that things didn't go great :# I've got a couple of questions to figure out maybe what I did wrong.

Basic setup is Rockwood lump, took out the kick ash basket and filled the firebox up to the top (note: not just below the platesetter, but roughly level with the top line of the firebox but the bottom of the ceramic ring the platesetter sits on.

A couple of things happened somewhere around 1:30am. First, it looks like almost all the lump was used up after only 4-6 hours. There were still some smoldering coals, but it had all burned down and the whole thing was cooling way off.

Second, there was a relatively large dip in the temperature but it came back up... however, the temp of the brisket started to drop even though the pit temp measured good for the next two hours. Why would that happen? Was it a false reading on the pit temp? Brisket temp doesn't actually drop during the stall, does it? Did my lump run out right as my brisket was getting to the stall?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/cx/3x8na0d9911q.png

Anyways, mainly I'm wondering how in the heck did my lump burn out at 250 after only a few hours. Am I supposed to have to refill a couple of times? Should I have filled up the egg almost to touch the bottom of the plate setter? Did I do something else wrong?

Thanks for any advice!

alaskanassasin · March 2022

Just my 2 cents here, charcoal all the way to the top of the ring and it will burn 24 hrs plus. In my experience weird things happen at 250, my egg prefers 275.

alaskanassasin · March 2022

at any rate your brisket is fine, also on the app you can set alarms for the smobot to kick you out of bed for major temp fluctuation.

abtaylor260 · March 2022

I am not a smobot user but it would not be normal to run out of lump at 250 constant temp. I have ran much longer before.

I do not use a kick ash basket either. Does this in any way reduce the amount of lump that fits up to the firebox?

I wonder if some of the other forum members have had similar experiences.

You can light your fire and have a channeling effect where half the coals never burn, but what you are describing is it all burnt out.

Interesting? I will follow this thread.

lousubcap · March 2022

I don't use a controller but echo the above regarding lump consumption in that even just to the top of the fire box it should last longer than six hours unless you had lots of void space. Also next time fill up to near the top of the fire ring as that about doubles your lump load.
Yes a brisket can drop in temperature during the stall. I have seen as much as 6-8*F drop due to evaporative cooling.
Time to go again.
And welcome aboard and enjoy the journey. Above all, have fun.

Griffin · March 2022

Have you calibrated your probe? There's no way you would have burned through all your lump in 4-6 hours at 250.

Yes, brisket can drop in temp during the stall.

conger · March 2022

Thanks for the inputs guys. Yeah the whole running out of lump after 6 hours thing really bothers me. Not sure what the story is, I reloaded and got it going again, so we'll see if it happens again. I'll double-check the temperature but my dome gauge is calibrated and it roughly agrees that it is in fact running around 250, so I'm inclined to think its not running hot.

I'll update again later today with what ends up happening. I'll include some pics too, should it "burn out" a second time. Thanks again all!

jtcBoynton · March 2022

You put in a 1/3 fill of lump. For a long cook you normally do a full fill.

jjdbike · March 2022

jtcBoynton said:

You put in a 1/3 fill of lump. For a long cook you normally do a full fill.

Yes,
I agree with this.
JD

Mark_B_Good · March 2022

For long cooks, I always go to the bottom of the plate setter with the coals. I agree, you had less than half the coals in there if you were at the bottom of the top ceramic ring. Plus you're using a large egg, and that isn't a lot of coals if you only filled that much.

My extra large will burn through at least 50% of my coals in a 12h cook ... and that is filled to the bottom of the plate setter. That would be like your large full to the top. So if you were in fact only say 40% of full ... You're gonna run out of coals after around 5h.

conger · March 2022

You guys are the best, thanks! You live you learn. I didn't realize going to the platesetter was the standard for the long cooks, that definitely would have let me get through the night.

I refilled this morning and re-lit, the meat is almost done now. Fingers crossed the temperature dip of the meat there for a couple of hours didn't mess up the cook!

lousubcap · March 2022

The feel in the thickest part of the flat is the best finish line indicator. Declare victory when you are there. Then give it around 20 minutes on a cooling rack to stop the carry-over cooking. After that it really does well with at least a 2 hour FTC (Foil, Towel, Cooler) and longer if possible.
@conger PM sent with some brisket info you may find of use going forward.

nolaegghead · March 2022

Starting empty, a large BGE should take about 10 pounds (plus or minus a couple pounds depending on density and shape) of lump to fill to the top of the fire ring where the plate setter sits. It is ok to overload it a bit so the plate setter is actually touching lump.

Looks like you just didn't have enough fuel. Everything else is seems normal. Your very long stall tells me you might want to run it a bit hotter. A kick ash basket (I don't know if you put it back in) will reduce the lump capacity a little, probably negligible.

Mark_B_Good · March 2022

conger said:

You guys are the best, thanks! You live you learn. I didn't realize going to the platesetter was the standard for the long cooks, that definitely would have let me get through the night.

I refilled this morning and re-lit, the meat is almost done now. Fingers crossed the temperature dip of the meat there for a couple of hours didn't mess up the cook!

The fire stalled during the meat stall ... I'm going to guess that was probably the right time for it to stall, if it had to happen. I don't think your cook will suffer at all.

Langner91 · March 2022

What was the ambient temperature (outside)? The process of cooking a brisket is a thermodynamic process. Charcoal has a set amount of potential heat units, holding your egg at the set temperature requires a set amount of heat units per hour. This varies with ambient air temperature and, to some lesser extent, wind velocity. Precipitation can also change the amount of charcoal that is burned per hour.

For instance, on Thanksgiving, it was 10°F and about 25mph wind while I grilled the turkey at 325°F in the egg. I used a ton of charcoal in those four hours compared to when I smoked a brisket for 12 hours on the 4th of July.

But, either way, you didn't have enough potential energy in your Kick-Ash-Basket. Fill 'er up!

nolaegghead · March 2022

Langner91 said:

What was the ambient temperature (outside)? The process of cooking a brisket is a thermodynamic process. Charcoal has a set amount of potential heat units, holding your egg at the set temperature requires a set amount of heat units per hour. This varies with ambient air temperature and, to some lesser extent, wind velocity. Precipitation can also change the amount of charcoal that is burned per hour.

For instance, on Thanksgiving, it was 10°F and about 25mph wind while I grilled the turkey at 325°F in the egg. I used a ton of charcoal in those four hours compared to when I smoked a brisket for 12 hours on the 4th of July.

But, either way, you didn't have enough potential energy in your Kick-Ash-Basket. Fill 'er up!

Good point, ambient conditions and precipitation can cause heat loss and make the fuel less efficient than dry hot weather. The ceramic mass of the egg has an insulating effect so this is not anywhere as bad as with an insulated metal smoker like many Webers, offsets, etc.

MediumRarely · March 2022

After many hundreds of briskets, I am very comfortable with the "set it & forget it" approach. You may want to consider an "all nighter" or two (or at least 90 min checks so you get some REM sleep cycles) before getting your full dose of beauty sleep in the middle of a brisket adventure. If I remember correctly (and this may NOT be the case after 40+ years), I couldn't sleep at all during my first few brisket cooks. Too nervous, too excited...

Mark_B_Good · March 2022

MediumRarely said:

After many hundreds of briskets, I am very comfortable with the "set it & forget it" approach. You may want to consider an "all nighter" or two (or at least 90 min checks so you get some REM sleep cycles) before getting your full dose of beauty sleep in the middle of a brisket adventure. If I remember correctly (and this may NOT be the case after 40+ years), I couldn't sleep at all during my first few brisket cooks. Too nervous, too excited...

I agree with the no sleep thing due to excitement. I do turbo brisket just because it's impossible for me to sleep if I'm cooking overnight.

Canugghead · March 2022

^^^ dislikowart or fat finger?

danhoo · March 2022

I sleep well (now) for over night cooks.

What changed? I added an ATC with alarms for high pit temp, low pit temp and high meat temp.

Once it woke me up early at 5am. I had a probe misplaced and it reached the wrap temp. Got up, tested temp with an instant read, moved the probe, went back to sleep.

People tell me I don't need an ATC, and they may be right, but I like having it.

First overnight cook, things went sideways!

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