LarryR

Two 13 lb monsters in progress.

On boneless I insert a fork and if I can easily twist/shred in the meat she's done. If you're looking for a temp to pull, I think 195 is fine.

I use temp as a guide to start checking for "doneness." When the bone moves freely and the meat is coming cleanly off the bone I remove from the cooker. It's generally around 195, although I have had some finish earlier and some go to 205.

Thanks for the replies. I do have some RO Lump that I could mix in there to get things going. I just don't know if the ECC will burn hot enough to maintain 325 for 4 - 5 hours. Maybe lay a layer of ECC down and then throw a chimney full of lit lump on top and then assemble the cooker . . .

I have two birds to do this Thanksgiving, one in my ceramic and one in my Weber Smoky Mountain (WSM). I've done several 225 - 325 cooks using the ECC in my Ceramic and LOVE IT! However, the WSM isn't as well insulated as the Ceramic so I'm wondering if it would be a bad idea to use it in the WSM. I have trouble maintaining 325 in my WSM when using Rancher Natural Charcoal with all bottom vents open and have even had to prop open the door to maintain them so I'm thinking I'd definitly have an issue with the ECC . . . but I'm not sure. Any thoughts. Thanks in advance . . .

Yea I've mainly purchased smaller chunks of wood from Smokinlicous and just recently started buying the larger pieces that I found locally. I'm going to find something to split them down to the smaller chunks. Next time I'm going to bury the pieces in the fuel and see how that goes. I do this in my WSM and it works pretty well.

Thanks. Yes same cook. I think the amount of wood I used and how it was positioned caused the erratic burn. I think I need to have my wood pieces cut into smaller pieces and work into the fuel ring.

I hope Chris doesn't mind me posting this. I've done this many times with excellent results. Chris Lilly's Six-time World Championship Pork Shoulder Recipe By : Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson's -------- ------------ -------------------------------- For the pork shoulder rub 1/4 cup dark brown sugar 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 cup paprika 1/3 cup garlic salt 1/3 cup kosher salt 1 tablespoon chili powder 1 teaspoon oregano leaves 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon black pepper ----------- Pork injection 3/4 cup apple juice 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup salt 2 tablespoons Worcestershire ------------ 1 whole pork shoulder (approximately 16 pounds) 1 bottle Big Bob Gibson Championship Red Sauce (or substitute your favorite BBQ sauce) Inject pork shoulder evenly with injection solution. Apply a generous amount of rub onto meat. Pat so the rub will adhere. Place in a smoker and cook with indirect heat for 16 hours on 225°F. Serve with sauce on the side or paint shoulder with sauce the last 20 minutes of cooking. When done, the pork should pull off the bones easily. The internal temperature of the pork should reach 195°F.

Just did my second pork butt cook on the ceramic and I'm amazed at how moist the final product is, simply amazed. I did two butts Thursday night a Mr. Brown and a Chris Lilly's six time championship shoulder rub (no injection) and they were out of this world moist. The Mr. Brown finished first so we at that butt for dinner and I pulled the second butt after dinner. As I was pulling the second butt I was picking a piece here and a piece there and found myself wishing I hadn't just eaten as I wanted to eat more, I felt like a pork butt addict. Even my SO said, "stop eating!! Here are some PICTURES.

So I did my fist low and slow Stoker cook on my ceramic and I've got to tell you I'm less than impressed. I did a high(er) heat cook two weeks ago using my Stoker and it worked flawlessly or as it should. The cook: two butts 10 and 8 lbs. ECC for fuel, target grate temp 225, bumped to 230 later in the cook. The graph below says it all. Top damper closed to the point of where you could barely feel heat coming out of it. Later in the cook I thought maybe I didn't have the damper open enough so I opened it 1/4 of a turn and this did nothing. As you can see the majority of the cook was very unstable (the very stable period you see starting around 1:30 a.m. was when I lost my wireless connection so it doesn't report) with very large temp swings, 20 degrees at some points. So extreme that Stoker thought the fire had gone out Unacceptable in my opinion, I can do better manually. I had similar issues to this when I first started using my Stoker with my WSM, however this went away when I added a heat sink (clay saucer) to my setup. Any help, suggestions, ideas etc would be greatly appreciated. EDIT: It appears that based on other's pictures the erratic Stoker performance also affected my fuel economy (based on others reports/pictures) I expected to have more fuel left over. Cook only went 21 hours. You can see pictures of the entire cook HERE EDIT II: I was looking at the post cook pictures and I'm wondering if the amount of wood and how I had it setup attributed to the erratic cook? In my previous cooks I did not use as much wood. Higher resolution picture HERE

Great eye, yes it's Rancher. I bought 30 - 40 bags when HD had it for $2.99 lb and used it for my low and slow cooks in my WSM. It's been working very well in my ceramic. I'm getting very long burn times nice stable temps. Not as nice as the KK ECC I recently purchased but it's working out quite nicely for my daily grills. Everyone loved the prime rib, just didn't have the "red" that I like in my roasts.

Pictures are updated. Well it was a new experience cooking a prime-rib on the ceramic. Plan was to have the roast done at about 7:00 for a 7:30 birthday dinner. Put her on at 2:00 p.m., temps were steady at 240 grate, 4:00 p.m. rolls around and I'm at 113 when I normally pull around 120/125 for med rare . . . damn! So I figured having her placed so high in the cooker was probably causing her to cook so quickly so I moved her down to the main grate and took the cooker temp down to 220. This stalled her a little bit but not enough, checked with the guests (who weren't even here yet) if 135 would be OK and everyone agreed it would be fine so I cooked her to 135 and didn't reverse sear (6:00 p.m.), let her rest and we ate a little early. Other than a speed cook I was very impressed with my first ceramic prime rib. Very moist (even though she was overdone for my taste), very flavorful tender etc. Rave reviews. Next time I'll start her later. Thanks for the input!

Thank you for your replies and yes I want to be clear to others who may read this post, the ceramic under discussion is NOT a KK, however I will add one in the future Understood and I appreciated the insight here. My deflector leaves approximately 2 1/2 to 3" open space between the edge of the deflector and the inside wall of my cooker. So does anyone see any issue with leaving the roast on while I bring it up to 500? Once at 500 how long should I stay there? I was thinking 5 minutes prior to removing. Also, I'm toying with the idea of dropping my cooking temp down to 300 or 275 to try and get more even results. Thanks again for all the input! EDIT: Another question, is there any reason for the clay saucer in this setup? If I'm placing the deflector on the main grate I'm wondering if I really need i . . . unless it's to control radiant heat from the deflector. Just curious. EDIT II: Here are my PICTURES

Hey Fire, so you're saying that the heat deflector is in fact trapping heat below the pizza pan I'm using which could potentially crack my firebox at higher temps, right? Hmmm . . . what if I staggered my clay saucer and deflector and did the roast on the top grate? 14" clay saucer on the "X" bracket, main grill on, 16" pizza pan on main grate, top grate extender on and prime rib placed on that?

You know I was wondering about just leaving her on and opening up the bottom and top 100% . . . should be able to get to 500 pretty quickly. Anyone see any issues with this?

As the subject says I'll be doing my first prime rib (6 lb) on the ceramic this weekend and I'm looking for some advice. I'm a big fan of reverse sear and was thinking I'd do it at 325 grate to 120 (target final temp is med-rare), remove from cooker and bring temp up to 500, place back on cooker for 5 minutes, remove and tent for 20 minutes? Should I cook on main or upper grate? I was planning on using my clay saucer and pizza pan deflector for in-direct. Any suggestions, tips or input?

Pictures are updated: Well just finished dinner (the meat was done too late last night for dinner) and I've got to say WOW it turned out great, much better than my expectations for a first run at this dish (and how it looked during the cook). I'd give it a solid B+. Meat was very moist, a nice hit of smoke, very tender and flavorful. Served with corn tortillas, cilantro, avocado, tomatoes and red onion. Next time I think I'll kick the spices up a bit, maybe do an Al Pastor type seasoning. I recommend for a "off the beaten path" cook.

Excellent question! You serve it with tortillas and eggs for breakfast or how we'll have it tonight on fresh corn tortillas, cilantro, onions, avocado and a salsa or whatever else you like on your tacos. I'll post more pictures tonight after dinner.

The link to the pictures is in my original post second line of the post. Turned out great, better than I remember. So tender and flavorful. Took longer in the foil than I had planned on but well worth the wait. Next time I'll probably do an al pastor type seasoning and maybe cut the time outside of the foil down.

Pictures Updated Seasoned the cheek(s) with kosher salt, pepper, ancho powder, cinnamon and cumin. Put her on the cooker at 225 grate with a piece of red oak for 4 hours. Transfered to foil pan, added a mixture of beef and chicken stock to steam, foil over the top and back on the cooker at 275 for another 2 hours. Smelled amazing!

BARBACOA PICTURES If you've ever had true Barbacoa I don't have to tell you how awesome it is. Problem is doing a whole cow head can be a real pain. Well I was at the meat counter today and saw they had beef cheek (best part of Barbacoa)! I Bought 12 lbs and I'll be doing it tomorrow, can't wait. If you've never had beef cheek you've got to try it, very tender and flavorful. Anyone ever done beef cheek on their ceramic and have any tips? My plan is to go 225 grate over a little red oak for 4 hours then foil for two. Man I can taste it now! Will be eating good tomorrow!! I'll be sure to post some pictures.

Greetings from the Central Valley! I'm in NW Fresno and love the Harris Ranch beef available here.

PICTURES First off thanks to everyone for their advice and input. Turkey turned out great one of the best I've done. Very moist, got lot's of "this is the moistest turkey I've ever had" comments. The more I cook on a ceramic the more I like it, great results. Unfortunately the wine started flowing pretty freely and I forgot to take pictures other than right when I was taking her off the cooker. It was excellent though. Thanks again for the help, can't wait for Thanksgiving!

She's on, Stoker's taken over and so far so good. Went with the bird in a roasting pan (w/rack) on main grate with clay saucer and 16" pizza pan on "X" bracket. She's sitting at 325 grate with no problem. Pictures soon . . .

Conodo, I used some tinfoil on the shaft of the Stoker adapter and it looks pretty good! Going with this method today on my first cook (as a temp. solution). Thanks again to everyone for their input.