Cook time too fast?

[Talbot]

I'm new to the BWS, and I have a Chubby. This might be a kind of dumb question, but I'm going to ask it anyway...

I'm on my 4th cook with the Chubby and a Guru. Each of my cooks has produced excellent results, so I'm not complaining... I'm just somewhat confused.

I've run at 225F each time, and the temps on the front door and the Guru are right in line with each other. My issue is that I'm reaching internal temps on my food in about 1/2 of the time I expect... ribs, pork shoulder, whole chicken (done in 2 hours).

Today, I'm running beef brisket. Right now it has been in smoking-heaven for exactly 3 hours - and the internal temp is already 180F.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm no expert, but I'm trying to cook like one in my back yard. I was expecting a 10 to 12 hour smoke on this brisket, but I think it is going to reach temp a lot sooner than that.

Thanks for your input.

Talbot

[stlbbqstore]

Talbot
Questions

*Were is your guru temp probe at ?
*How close is brisket from door probe and Guru probe ?
*Have you checked calibration of thermometers?


Water smokers do cook quicker but 3 hours for brisket at 225 degrees and you are at 180 internal temp something is definitley not right

Briskets on my Chubby were 9-10 hours to 190 internal temp with cook temp at 230 ( door probe )


I would mount your Guru probe onto the Backwoods door temp probe and also reinsert meat probe

[Talbot]

The pit probe was clipped onto the rack the brisket was cooking on.
The food probe was inserted deeply into the thickest part of the meat.

I didn't check the calibration, but the pit temp prob matches nearly exactly the door temp.

I don't really know a good approach to checkinig the calibration of the thermometers. Can you suggest one?

Today, I slowed down the cook by dropping my internal temp to 210. The brisket hit 190F at about 7pm - a 7 hour cook. Right now it is still resting, but I can report back later on the cook quality.

Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

Talbot

[stlbbqstore]

Check thermometers in boiling water 212 degrees

Seven hour cook for brisket I would say is in the range of a normal cook.

You can hit the Plateau stage (160-165 degrees ) fairly quick and then it sticks for a long time but you seemed to be beyond that stating in your first post that you hit 180 degrees at 3 hr mark.
Are you saying it took 4 hours to cook the final 10 degrees ?

[Talbot]

The brisket turned out pretty dry, but it had a pretty smoke ring. I think it was dry because I way over-trimmed it and it was a small brisket. Just under 5 pounds before trimming. Either way it was reasonably tender (not perfectly tender) and it had a great flavor.

I did the thermometer check. In the same water, they were about 5 degrees apart (pit reads lower) and close enough to 212.

To be totally accurate, in 3 hours, I was at 176, not exactly 180. I set the pit temp way down to prolong the time. (The lower the temp delta, the slower the climb.)

The plateau stage is interesting information. Thanks for sharing that.

[stlbbqstore]

Talbot
Trial and error,but one thing you got going for you is one great little cooker.

My first brisket on the Chubby was I thought dry also.

Next time i will wrap in foil at 160-165 to keep in juices

[Talbot]

I could not agree more. It is a spectacular smoker for me. I'll keep trying, because even the less-than-perfect result is better than most.

One thing that I have learned today (I've never been a beef brisket person, so today was kind of a whim. Not that I don't like beef, I just loves me some pork) is that I got a flat brisket instead of a packer brisket. Next time, I'll try a "packer brisket" .

[Captain-que]

When I cook flats, I always wrap in foil after they pass 165 internal. With the thinner mass, I've always found that the flats tend to be a little dry cooked completely in the fire.

[hogzillas]

I had the same problem this weekend when I did ribs/chicken in my Chubby as well. I've normally done my chicken at 250+ for about 1.5 hrs before saucing them & they're at 160 but this past weekend I was doing 225 & at 1.5 hrs they looked done already so I checked the meat temp & they were at 170+ in all pieces so I sauced them then but they were overcooked. The STL ribs ended up tough but were cooked about 3hrs but should've taken about 4 hrs from the all the times I've done STL styles at 225. I've charted my smoker w/ it's only cool spot being 10-15 below the door just in front of the smoke vent holes in back of smoker. I'm still learning about smoker but this weekends results have me scratching my head