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I had in mind to smoke a couple of pork butts low and slow. I had not cooked on Mable in about a year, due to a number of factors. I had not cleaned her since the last cook, nor had I done any routine spring maintenance this year. To make a long story short, Mable remained true to her pedigree, all the fault was mine. I first became aware of an issue when I could not stabilize her temperature. After seven years of set and forget simplicity, I was not expecting her temp to continue to climb. I knew that air was getting in somewhere, though. I discovered the problem was the knob on the back door. it was loose and unable to be tightened with fire in the cooker. I MacGuyvered a quick fix using some Gorilla tape. Fortunately, Mable had not stabilized at 300. After the improvised repair, I was able to slowly back down the temp to 210 over the course of the next two hours. The problem started around 2:00 am, and by 4:30 am I was able to get some shuteye. As I type this, the temp is about 240 and the meat is 163 degrees. I anticipate a delicious pulled pork dinner, thanks to the incredible engineering that goes into these cookers. They are engineered to be airtight, but it does take some routine maintenance to keep it that way. Once the air leak was sealed, Mable was as happy as a clam at high tide. I am posting a few photos to support the verbiage. I will post a finished product pic or two. Note: I just went out and took pics 7 and 8. Internal is 168. I will foil at 175.

This is my second post here---people have been so helpful with my first one (venting problems) I decided to post another question. This is a very good forum! Yesterday I did my first cook, using Steven Raichlen's recipe for reverse-sear tri-tip. Basically, with a cooker temperature of 225, you bring the meat to an internal temp of 110, then take it off to rest, putting it back over direct heat to finish it. I was really excited to use my new DigiQ unit, but I have to admit that the temperature control done "by hand" is pretty easy. I filled the basket with lump, and lit a small area in the center with my Looftlighter (yeah, I DO like gadgets!). I started with the bottom opening about halfway open, and the top vent open a couple of turns. When the temp hit about 180, I closed the bottom vent, opened the top maybe a quarter turn from the closed position, and plugged in the fan connected to the DigiQ. I let it sit, DigiQ set to a target temp of 225, and added the meat, probe inserted. A couple of things----the fan ran for a while, got it to 225, then shut off. I had some temperature over-run to about 250, not too bad. Reading some of the posts here, I will close the vent on the fan a little next time, since I guess even with the fan off, air can get sucked through it. The second issue is more concerning. The charcoal slowly lit itself, of course, but the smell of the smoke was not that pleasant. Kind of a "suffocating fire" odor if you know what I mean (i had two lumps of oak on top, forgot to mention that). Really not the kind of smell I associate with using my pellet smoker (Cookshack Fast Eddy, used for over 10 years). I was wondering---is the incomplete combustion that comes from starting just a small part of the charcoal pile contributing to that? A couple of posts here mention setting the whole pile on fire (I assume with a chimney starter) and dumping that into the unit. The downside of this I could see would be trying to hold the temp down to 225!) but at least the whole pile would be actively burning. Or, perhaps I should have let the unit have more time to heat up thoroughly (a couple hours? One guy here starts his at bedtime for starting a smoke in the AM!) ? As I read what I just typed, I'm not sure how clear I was. The main concern I had was the odor, almost like a pile of leaves that was smoldering. Acrid might be the right term? By the way, I was using Big Green Egg lump. Dennis sent me some of his cool coconut charcoal, but I'm jealously guarding that for now. Thanks again ! Jim