aconserva

There is a leak from the left rear of the lid, with the latch fully closed. I plan on addressing it as it also allows water into the komodo (sprinkler gets komodo wet) which led to a mold issue. I think I am going to try reseating the lid. Not sure though how much this weighs into the problem though because its not a large leak. I guess it does prevent air from the top of the dome from leaving.

Cooked a 5ish pound butt using Meatheads recipe, butt was nicely marbled. Used meatheads dry brine and nothing else. No foil or wrapping. Komodo kept at a even 225 pretty much the whole cook using a bbqguru cyberQ and fan. Took 24hrs to get to the 205 degree point. Was decent when done but dry. There was a temp stall at @150 and another @188 both of which took hours and hours. Lid was only opened twice during the entire cook. I am figuring it was the time that caused the dryness as according to Meathead (and other sites) this size should only take about 10-12 hours. This is the second time this has happened as I got something similar with my final cook last summer. I have had success before (way less dry) but I don't remember the exact whys and wherefores of those cooks, though I dont remember those taking as long. I am not against trying other things (different temps, foil, injections) but I should be able to get the pork butt nicely cooked with exactly how I was doing it. I want to work towards getting this setup good so I better understand whats going on. One thing I am thinking that I am going to try next time is modify the way I control the heat on the cook. I basically had the top hat cranked all the way closed and was relying on the small amount of leakage coming out the main seal to exhaust the heat. I did this because the temp started climbing past 225 at one point with the top almost all the way closed and I had to shut it completely to get it to go down. I am thinking that the long cook times in the stall were maybe because of high humidity in the Kamado due to the sealed conditions. I think next time I am going to try and control the intake through the fan by closing the fan damper more next time and leave the exhaust more open. Anyone else have any suggestions I can try to make my cook time more on desired target.

So instead of using the Kamado to generate the steam could you use a steam generator something like this to pipe steam in the port at the bottom? Would that be the same thing or will this not produce enough steam for this application. https://www.amazon.com/Earlex-SS77USSG-Generator-1-3-Gallon-capacity/dp/B005JRF43M?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1

Instead of an alligator clip probe you may want to pick up a Probe Tree from BBQGuru. I have one and it makes dealing with the probe easier. http://store.thebbqguru.com/weborderentry/BBQ%20Guru%20Probe%20Tree

Posted my review up. Was looking at the pictures on amazon and think that you really need to include one that shows the scale of the kamado. I dont think someone looking at these would get a good sense of truly how massive these things are.