Large cook

Congrats on your buy.

I have found the convection fan can help to crisp things on the right side of the chamber.

I have been running things at 235 when I have a full load. And depending on where you load the larger meats, I would think 12-14 hours. But every unit is a little different. And outside air temps can change things some, along with wind.

Is this a BBQ for Troops for something else?

Good on 'ya (I'm retired AF myself) so I thank you for doing this.

Randy, you jump in and tell me if you agree on your thoughts on load out.

One thing you have to account for in a fully loaded smoker is how you load it. If you use 10 shelves (leaving the middle one out) I find that whatever you put on the lower shelf takes longer.

Reason is air flow across that shelf is somewhat restricted by the items on the shelf above. The "bark" changes.

Good news is whatever you put on the top shelf will baste the bottom. With that (and I don't like cooking just flats) then I would suggest butts on the top shelf and briskets on the bottom.

Plan on being done WAY ahead of time because you're going to need time to pull and cut that much brisket and pork (or is someone else doing that?)

We are going to Ft. Bragg in Fayetteville NC tomorrow morning and get set up at noonish.We will be feeding 600 Troops on Thursday at 11:30 AM til ?
We have 6-7 guys going for prep tomorrow nite. We have 32 butts and 16 brisket flats. I am use to cooking at 250 on my Stumps. Don't call me crazy but this is the 3rd cook on the new 500.
I am worried about cook temp and time. I figured someone here would educate me on their experience. We would like everything to be done at 7 AM Thursday morning. We have 6-7 more volunteers arriving to help cut and pull meat and setup the serving lines. I figured we will pull the pork and put it in AL pans and into the cambros. If we run out of that space we'll put them back in the 500 at 160 deg on hold.
So that is the plan. Any info will help and thanks for what you have told me already.
Incidently, Del King from CA is the founder of "BBQ for the Troops" and deserves alot of the credit. We are just happy and fortunate to be able to do it for our Servicemen and Women. We have done Ft Bragg, Camp Lejuene, Ft Meyers and Norfolk
Thanks,
Mike
Sorry for the long post

You ARE crazy, we can call you that for doing this on your 3rd cook.

But it's for a great cause.

Wish I could help do it for the troops. I did something similar for Katrina Evacuees, but we had a 750 full of about 60 or 70 full packers.

I don't know the timing, but earlier would be easier for you if you're worried about timing.

I don't think the flats will take 12 hours. I'd put verything on at 7pm (or sooner), at 250. Butts on top shelf to baste the briskets.

I'd get everything on early as possible and worse case you have to pull them overnight sometime (someone will have to watch them) but throw them in ice chest and that many will last for many hours

What about keeping them on hold at 160 if they get done quickly. We are going to sleep in the trailer so we will be right there. I'll check them at 9 hrs.
Did you get my piuctures of the trailer. I sent them to you 2 days ago to rework and put on the forum. We are getting rave reviews from everyone who sees this BIG thing.
Thanks,
Mike

Haven't had a spare moment, but I'll look for the photos and get them up.

Sure you can hold them, key is do you have something separate to hold them? Not everything will come off together.

Smokin, I have never cooked on a 500 but have a question for you. If they put the meat back in the 500 at 160 to hold, should they wrap the meat in foil to keep from getting too much smoke on the outside of the meat. If I was holding on my FEC100, I would probably wrap the meat as I know how much smoke it puts out at that temp. And it would probably depend on how long I intended to hold the meat on the 500 too.


Just a thought.

Me?

I wouldn't wrap (depending on how long between hold and server) and I'd hold more like 145/150. It won't take on that much more smoke and a little more smoke flavor wouldn't hurt anyway.

Probably a personal preference more than anything, but given the quantity, if I was going to wrap, I'd probably got ahead, slice/pan etc and wrap and hold.

Well, we cooked for 5-600 troops today. I put 32 butts on the tops shelves and 13 good sized briskets on the bottom shelves. Yes the right side of the smoker was hotter and the top shelf was also hotter I cooked at 250 deg from 7 PM wednesday til 7:30 AM I took off 20 butts, I increased the temp to 280 and finished them off because of time. One thing I noticed is with the cooker set at 250 it only got up to 244 and fluxuated from 234-244. I never got up to 250. I set it at 280 and it got to 275 and never reached 280. Any reason for this?
Also when I ended up taking all but 3 briskets off at the end the temp dropped to 128 and the fire quit and the pots filled with pellets. I can't understand why that happened either.
We got rave reviews on the meat and the brisket was real moist.
Mike

First, congrats on the success. Pretty gutsy on a new smoker.

quote:

Originally posted by M. Lewis:
One thing I noticed is with the cooker set at 250 it only got up to 244 and fluxuated from 234-244. I never got up to 250. I set it at 280 and it got to 275 and never reached 280. Any reason for this?

Also when I ended up taking all but 3 briskets off at the end the temp dropped to 128 and the fire quit and the pots filled with pellets. I can't understand why that happened either.
We got rave reviews on the meat and the brisket was real moist.
Mike

Last part first. Did the fire go out in BOTH firepots. That's like beyond rare.

Did you set the cook time for long enough or did it go into hold mode? I've done that on LONG cooks. You have to set the time or it will drop to hold automatically.

I did have that happen on me once, that one of the two pots the fan stopped working, so I replaced that. A different time, I had an igniter go out, but the 2nd pot lit just fine. I just used a propane torch to start the pellets and the smoker ran fine the whole time.

+/- 6 degrees on the first example is within a small %. Given the large amount of food you had in there, it's understandable. You could easily confirm by starting it with no food, don't open the doors and see how it does on temp. The easy thing to do is just up it by a couple of degrees. I've cooked a few dozen times and I've never sweated that. IF after it stabilizes and I want the temp up to an exact #, I just bump the temp up. It's an advantage of a digital controller.

BUT if you're really concerned about it, call Tony or Bill in service. They're awesoe guys and will help diagnose the pot issue.

Both pots filled. I did have the hold time set up real high so it would not go into hold mode while I was cooking. I will try to call Tony and see why.
I am so use to cooking with a Stoker on my Stumps and it holds temps +/- 3 deg's and tries to maintain the set point you enter in. It drove me nuts because it would not come up to the set temp. When I went to finish them off by increasing the temp at the end I did exactly that I raised the temp more than I needed to compensate for the cooker not comming up to temp. I wanted it at 275 so I set it to 280
Thanks,
Mike
Thanks,
Mike

You said the pots were both full. Did you have good strong flame coming out of the pots.

I have really never had mine go above 255. But on two occasions, I noticed the temps shot up over 310. Opened the door and the chamber was really blazing. The pots were full, but the ramp had alot of dust and teh pellets were backing up the ramps.

Took some long ss tongs, and cleared the pamps and took out some of the pellets out of the pots. That at the end of a long cook, maybe 16-17 hours.

RandyE

i use a clean, unused toilet brush to clean the ramps [chutes]

I did have to clean the chutes during the cook. There was alot of dust in both of them. When I did that the first time flame was in both pots and it was shooting flame up the chutes.
The last time it completely filled the pots and there was no flame and the chutes were full of pellets.
Thanks,
Mike