Where did I go wrong?

[jeffshoaf]

Made my second attempt at smoking on my new KK last night - the 1st was baby backs at 225 for 4 hours that went well once I got the charcoal lit, which convinced me to get a weed burner and a canister of mapp gas. This round, I used a combination of kk extruded coconut and cowboy lump with some hickory chunks. I used the weed burner and thought I had the extruded stuff started well; the lump was going good, so I put grids, diffuser, and drip pan in. After a half hour or so. The temp was up to 180 in the dome, so I put the butt on the upper grill and closed down the chimney so that it was about a half turn open and the damper down to about a quarter inch open.

I checked before I went to bed and the temp seemed rock solid at 200.

Got up this morning and cheeked the kk. The temp was at 500 and butt was burnt black.

So, where did I go wrong? My suspicion is that the coconut charcoal wasn't burning as well as I thought and the temp shot up when it finally caught good, but since I have little experience with it, that's just a guess. Any thoughts?

As an aside, I've placed the heat diffuser on the lowest grid both times I cooked. Is that the right place for it, or is it ok to just put the diffuser on the fuel basket handles?

Thanks in advance to any responses !

[dstr8]

Get your lump to the gray stage; it also helps to have the KK more or less heat soaked before letting it go overnight/all day. I use an MSR lidded pot (I drilled holes in the lid) per another thread here...to contain my smoking wood chunks (I pre-charred/burnt the wood chunks in a chimney to burn off the white noxious/acrid smoke before adding them to the MSR pot...and then atop the hot coals). For a ~12 hour smoke I fill the basket about 3/4 full or so of lump.

I generally, for ~225*F, set the dome damper so that its 1/8-1/4 turn tighter after contact with the fire rope. The bottom vent is just cracked so the widest portion of the 'pie slice' opening is about 1/4" and sometimes less.

I've used the ceramic heat diffuser resting atop the charcoal basket and also the next higher position atop the smaller diameter main grate without issue.

My KK has kept 225*F rock solid for 14-hours with plenty to spare for longer if/as needed.

[tony b]

It was not the coco finally catching that spiked up your temperature. Temperature control in a KK is all about airflow. You had too much air flowing through and allowed too much charcoal to light and it shot up your temperature. Don't fret too much, we've all had similar things happen to us, especially in the "baby steps" period where we're learning how to use this magic box! Too bad though about burning up a butt. Ouch!

For long, overnight cooks, consider getting a temperature controller, like a BBQ Guru, You'll sleep better at night! I'm using mine as we speak to control my KK @ 250F for a rack of ribs.

[Loquitur]

The top vent being 1/2 turn open is way too much for a low temperature cook. I set mine at about one inch or so from being closed. It will take a long time for the grill to get to temperature with these settings but it won't overshoot. Once you get some experience you will be able to open the vents more to get the temperature up to where you want it more quickly and then set the vents where they need to be to maintain the low temperature. Susan

[DennisLinkletter]

Charcoal always burns at the maximum volume for the given airflow. When you get a steady temp set, make a physical or mental note of the position of both the damper top and the draft door airflow dial is.. this setting will be the same every time. The problem is that if the body of your KK is not completely heat soaked it will give you a false lower reading.. because the body is sucking up heat like a sponge. We have all adjusted up our airflow thinking we needed more heat and over shot our target temps.

Just gotta trust it will get there.. especially in the winter when you are starting with a cold body.

I came up with a solution for a customer in Alaska whose grill is frozen when he starts.. he now lights a charcoal starter outside his grill gets it raging then sets it on the lower grill on his drip pan to pre-heat his grill.. when the body is hot.. he just pours in a little burning charcoal into the basket. He's worked out how much fuel it takes to get the grill to temp. This way he can have a much larger volume of charcoal heating up his grill and won't later overshoot his target temp which uses so little charcoal burning..

[jeffshoaf]

Thanks for all the responses! It looks like I didn't allow enough time for pre-heat/heat soak, then. Sort of silly in hindsight - I didn't light it earlier for fear of running out of charcoal during the long cook, even tho everyone says that's not a real concern if starting with s full load.

[tony b]

Great tip, Dennis! You should put that in a "sticky note" somewhere on the forum for folks that live in colder climates.

While Iowa isn't exactly Alaska, it's gets damned cold here when we get one of those "artic clippers" shooting straight down out of Canada.

[mk1]

You will quickly develop faith in how little CoCo char you can light and how little airflow you need for 225 to 250. A temp controller is nice but not needed. Also if you drift up to 275 it wont be the end of the world....for me I open the top and bottom about halfway/ half turn until I get to 200 degrees to get lit, then I put them at barely open to stabilize at 250....HTH

[mguerra]

For a low and slow leave the weed burner in the garage. You just want to light a very small amount of charcoal to maintain 200 to 250. And to repeat, barely crack the bottom and top vents for a low temp.

[Firemonkey]

Wow, I go away for a bit and you guys redecorated the place

Adding to what mk1 said about how efficient your KK is, especially with the extruded charcoal, there is/was a thread around here where Drunk_J ran his KK ran for about 3.5 days at smoking temps (225-250) on one basket of KKEC charcoal, before he got bored and turned up the temp to grill dinner. After all that, I think there was still some left in the basket. You will NOT run out of fuel, even if you preheat for hours.

I tried searching for it, but the new search functions are not cooperating.