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Well, after my crappy first attempt at no draft controller.. Decided to try again, with ribs! So got a rack of baby backs, and slathered them up with mustard, and then used a commercial rub, which I never do lol... I used Meat Church's Holy Voodoo Rub... Lit plenty of lump this time, still no draft controller. Took it to 255 or so, and smoked for four hours, dumping a few small chunks of hickory on top of the charcoal before putting them on. The heat crept up along the way up to 285 or so. So was making small adjustments along the way. But I bet if you put an accurate thermometer in your kitchen oven, it would fluctuate more than that ! My electronic thermometer was bouncing all over, the Trutel was easier to deal with! Used a piece of foil over the bottom grate, and the drip pan on top of that. Came out looking good I think! Lifted in the middle with tongs and they were starting to bow over and tear. Wrapped in red paper, then foil x 2, then cling wrap, then a towel, for a two hour rest. Perfect texture and looked amazing. Would have preferred more smoke myself, and one of the KK smoke generators may be on the way! Also the rub wasn't too pronounced even though I used what I thought was a lot.. So maybe more next time Also found those porcelain dishes at an antique shop, and thought they would just fit a rack of ribs.. I was right ! Handy for popping in the fridge as it all comes up to speed !

Ribs look great Instead of dropping the hickory on top of the lit coals try burying it in a few spots inside the pile of lump. If you put them right on top they can catch fire and burn real fast and hot raising your internal temp. I had that happen once or twice.

It's one of the few cooks where a hammer is a required prep tool!

IMG_6449.MOV My brother took a few more pics and videos from our cookout, including some of the chickens. @C6Bill, the meat market offered to cut off the head and feet but we initially left then on for presentation (plus I have some kin who like the tongue and there's a surprising amount of meat on the head), but we ended up cutting the feet off - we had the pig's spine secured to the spit before realizing we hadn't accounted for the hind legs when centering it on the spit. PXL_20240810_170033718.TS.mp4 IMG_6449.MOV IMG_6453.MOV

Or build a Syzygies cast iron smoker pot. The wood chunks inside it just smolder and don't catch fire, so there's no noticeable heat increase and the wood smolders for a long time.

I filled it, albeit with lump.. to there are some gaps.... Next time will over fill it !

OK, Email to customer service has been sent.

Two tips on using the Guru probe to monitor grate temps - first, don't clip the probe directly to the grate - you're getting heat condution from the rods and aren't measuring true air temperature. I use an old wine cork with a screw in it to clip the alligator clip to. I trim the cork on the bottom to snuggly fit between the grate rods. The second tip - akin to what @wrandyr noted, you don't want the probe too close to the meat. A couple of grate rods away (several inches) is sufficient to measure the air temperature around the meat without worrying about being "in the shadow." For the MEATER probe, don't insert it beyond the scribed line on the probe. Again, otherwise the air probe at the tip could be "shadowed" by the meat. Another, unrelated tip about MEATER probes - while they're absolutely perfect for doing rotisserie cooks, be careful to insert the probe as close to parallel to the rotation as you can, preferably in the end of the meat. Why, you might ask? Well, I actually had this happen to me on a rotisserie cook where I stuck the probe in perpendicular to the meat surface. When it rotated, juices ran down the probe shaft and were getting cooked onto the tip of the probe. I only noticed it when the MEATER app warned me of a temperature drop. When I went out to check things, I noticed that there was a big blob of crusted material on the end of the probe, which was effectively insulation. When I wiped that off, the temperature reading went back to "normal."

Thanks @C6Bill Great article and I learned something new. I didn't know about the link with the Komodo mountain. And what great publicity for the new Goldilocks!