Heat Deflector

[jwillads]

I am doing my first cook and need some help. I lit my cooker this afternoon just to see how easy/hard it would be to control the temp. I have a Digi Q II and it held the temperature at 225 for hours. I decided to throw a pork butt on but forgot to put the heat deflector in. I checked the temp and it was up to 285. I closed the damper a little more and need to recheck to see if it came down. Is the temp rise due to no heat deflector? Can you do low and slows without the deflector?

Thanks,

[jdbower]

Which damper did you adjust, the top or the bottom? With a Guru/Stoker you should have the lower closed and the upper only needs to be cracked - let the fan do all the work. Some reasons why your temps climbed after you added the meat:

1. If the lower damper was open there may just have been more airflow through it for whatever reason. It's also possible that a very open top damper can allow air to leak in.

2. Opening the lid lets an inrush of O2 in, this can cause more coals to ignite and increase the temps shortly.

3. The KK may have become fully heatsoaked about that time, after a few hours a minor temp spike isn't uncommon because the walls of the cooker no longer absorb much heat at all.

4. If you've checked the dome thermometer it may be different than the pit probe, either through calibration issues or just because the pit probe is closer to the flames.

5. Drippings from the pork may ignite on the coals, or cause other coals to ignite.

Whatever the reason (except for #1 and maybe #5) the Guru should compensate and back off the airflow to smother the fire a little more. I'll let others chime in on their direct vs. indirect experiences, I'd imagine the results would be different but the Guru should be able to maintain temps as long as the fat doesn't drip too much.

[jdbower]

One more I forgot, when you open the lid the Guru probe sees the outside air and turns the fan on high thinking there's a massive temperature drop. Whenever you open the dome you should disconnect the Guru fan or otherwise pause it - I think the DigiQ II has a lid open detector of some sort but I don't know how it works.

[jwillads]

Temp is back down

I closed the lid a little and the temp came back down. It's holding at 225. I am still curious about the indirect vs direct. I am a little worried once the pork fat starts to melt on the coals my temp will start rising.

[Fetzervalve]

Re: Temp is back down

I closed the lid a little and the temp came back down. It's holding at 225. I am still curious about the indirect vs direct. I am a little worried once the pork fat starts to melt on the coals my temp will start rising.

No reason you can't put the heat deflector in now. Put it on the lump basket and a drip pan on the lower grill. Work quickly and reassemble, no problem.

[ThreeDJ16]

Remember when you add the hunk of cold meat, make sure your pit probe is at least a couple inches from the meat. Natural draft is a bad thing when using a power draft system, so seal it up and only allow a small exhaust opening....let the Guru do the work.

You should be able to flip up the main grill trap door and place the heat deflector in without too much trouble.

Lastly, you can cook without the deflector, but the temps need to be adjusted significantly lower.

-=Jasen=-

[jwillads]

Update

I opened the lid, lifted the grate with pork and had the wife put the heat deflector in. I have had this fire going since noon and the amount of ECC used is amazing. At the current burn rate, I think this fire would last for two or three days.

[Conodo12]

You won't know unless you try! Got any more meat hangin' around?

[jdbower]

There's a report of a Gen II running 85 hours on a single fueling, the really scary part is that Dennis STILL isn't happy with the quality. If this is the bad stuff, I can't wait to see how the good stuff performs!

[jwillads]

Final question on this cook

I had two butts in the cooker side by side. The largest was probably 8 lbs. The cook started around 4 pm at 225 degrees. The next morning, I was going to be gone all day so I turned the DigiQ down to 200. About 5 pm the next night (25 hours later), the butts were only registering 170 degrees. This seems like way too long of a cook with half the time at 225 and half at 200 to only reach 170. Thoughts?

[ThreeDJ16]

Re: Final question on this cook

I had two butts in the cooker side by side. The largest was probably 8 lbs. The cook started around 4 pm at 225 degrees. The next morning' date=' I was going to be gone all day so I turned the DigiQ down to 200. About 5 pm the next night (25 hours later), the butts were only registering 170 degrees. This seems like way too long of a cook with half the time at 225 and half at 200 to only reach 170. Thoughts?[/quote']

A good rule of thumb is a 30 degree delta between pit set point and desired meat temp. I don't think you will ever hit 190-195 with a pit temp of 200. The fact you had the pit setpoint at 225 in the beginning will have no effect on ever reaching 190-195 at the end.

Next time you need to leave a cook like that....give the ramp mode on the DigiQ a try. It is designed to do exactly what you needed....a cook and hold mode.

-=Jasen=-