Amerique smokin in the cold, smoker temp too low

Do you have the smoker plugged in an extension cord? Have you been opening the door? Have you used the smoker previously? How did it work then? The cold ambient temp is not an issue.

No extension cord,door kept closed,and I've had the smoker for over a year. I don't remember it being this cold outside when I've smoked.

I think you'll be OK. The outside temps don't make much difference other than the insides will be colder than usual at the beginning.


Have you cooked this many butts before? If not then just wait a few more hours and see where the BUTTS are temps wise. I don't worry too much about my smoker temp as it can get kinda wacky sometimes.

Good points from crony.

You have alot of meat in to absorb the heat.

Do you have the probe set? Let us know what it is reading when you check it in the morning and how long it has been.

I would hope that you warmed up the Amerique before putting in the butts. Also, it helps some to leave the butts on the counter for an hour or two before putting them in the smoker to let them warm up a little. Should not be long enough to cause any bacterial growth so you will be safe there.

Butts sat for a few hours before cooking. I did not pre-heat. Do you pre-heat and then put the smoke box in with the meat? Loading all racks I would think that most of the pre-heating would be lost. Is this so?

Butts were avg. 6lbs. and they were done this morning. I'm not sure of exact cook time ~14 hours.

Dave

They must have got done fairly quick. Sounds like nothing wrong.

As Smokin Okie says,take real good notes,

That lets you UTILIZE your experience.

Some AQ guys may have to input-if they have kept notes,and varied their process.

A stick burner may like lots of preheating,and letting multiple butts/packers come to room temp.

He can't overcome the "heat sink",or stabilize the cooker.

An FEC cook may have reasons to stabilize the cooker for down the road cooking.

If the AQ is acting like a house oven,you may not want to do the above.

I.e.,with my 160,I will load a full case of butts,unheated cooker,straight from the coldest place in the coldkeeper.

If I am building a Smokering-not necessary,wanting to lay on extra smoke-maybe,use the electronics to make the cooker fit my personal timing needs, or use the hold feature on the back end.

Learn the cooker,as one answer is not always the answer.

Just my $0.02

DaveN, I too find the more I load my Amerique up with meat, the slower it comes up to temp which makes sense to me - more mass to heat up with the same limited amount of "heat-up" capability. With your CS smoker powered by only a regular wall outlet, it is not like an electric kitchen oven with its bigger element and bigger sized (#6 usually) wire powering it. Living in Northwest where our typical temps are from 20's to 90's, when I'm cooking to "time" vs "temp" such as with ribs, I will add about a 1/2 hour more to cook times when its colder outside or when oven is fully loaded up since it just takes longer to come up to temp. When smoking the bigger sized pieces of meat I try to mostly watch just the meat probe temp rather than the oven temp, but it is not that easy to do. One "problem" (but it really is a nice feature) with an Amerique is its digital oven temp read-out makes it so easy to 'stew & fret' over those oven temps. Just relax, have another hors d`oeuvre, and let the Amerique do its wonderful magic - but remember - the more food in smoker the longer it takes, so make lots of hors d`oeuvres !! Enjoy!

The more meat in the smoker, the slower it initially comes up to temp, yes. However, the more meat in the smoker causes it to maintain temp much more efficiently regardless of ambient outdoor temp.

quote:

Butts were avg. 6lbs. and they were done this morning. I'm not sure of exact cook time ~14 hours.

That matches our experience.
The Amerique appears to be substantially indifferent to ambient temperature;
we see the same cook times for 45F as 14F.

quote:

I would hope that you warmed up the Amerique before putting in the butts.

This is contrary to Cookshack's instructions, and I imagine this would confound the smoking cycle.
Sliding the woodbox on a hot element seems ill-advised..

You are correct. No need for preheating.