Smokette Temperatures

Are you on an extension cord, or is your outlet real far away from the circuit breaker on a heavily used circuit?

I have a similar problem with pork butt. I cannot for the life of me get it above 194 F (even after 22 hours for a 5# butt). I am on an extenstion cord (heavy duty)and that may be the problem.

I'm using an eight foot extremely heavy duty cord and I thought of that as a problem and ruled it out since it still peaks at 255 before cycling. The problem seems to be that the cooling cycle takes longer than the heating cycle and the cooling is not linear (e.g. the cooling time below set point is much longer than the cooling time above set point. The whole issue is compounded by a quicker heating cycle and results in a lower than expected "average" temp.

This is just my opinion but you may be getting too critical about the temperature of the smokette & the final internal temperature of the meat. I have never checked the temperature of my smokette & everything I've tried to smoke has come out fine. I know some people on this Forum seem to be overly concerned with temperatures (which is their perogative) but if you research barbecueing (smoking) methods in books or the internet, you'll find a great diversity of opinions about the subject. Paul Kirk, who is considered a pretty good experet on this subject, recommends a smoking temperature between 230' & 250'. That's a pretty big window of temp ranges. He also recommends an internal temp for pork shoulders of between 170' & 180'. Now I'm not going to argue with Mr. Kirk but personnaly I get the internal temp somewhere between 185' & 190'. That's just my personal preference. I've never gotten to that magical 200' that some swear by but the meat has always fallen off the bone with no problem. As others have said on this Forum, "It ain't rocket science". Find what works for you, use the opinions expressed here and elsewhere as a guide & enjoy the experience. Even your mistakes are edible (most of the time)!

I agree PaulM.

I've provided detailed information about temps to those of interest, but in over 2 years of using a cookshack, the temp fluctuations have never been a problem. (we ought to discuss the temp flucs in other smokers for a laugh).

Don't sweat the small stuff...because it's all small stuff.

Just ole Smokin' Okies thoughts.

I went through some electrical troubleshooting with my Smokette. I found the temperature to vary +/- 30 degrees and I believe others have verified these numbers. When my smokette is set to 250, it will go as high as 280 and low as 222. As such I usually take that into consideration and set my thermostat 25 degrees lower than the highest temperature I want. I might crank it up the last hour but I don't want some stuff cooking at 280, even if it is for a short period. So for pork butts I usually set at 220.

As for the internal meat temperature, either your not going long enough or you have some intermittent problems and are cooking at a lower temp than you think. Do you have a second polder to measure cooker temp as well as internal meat temp? I'll check next time to see the amount of time it takes to cycle from "average" to low and "average" to high. I had not considered that before.

PaulM, I think I missed your point. You say maybe some are to concerned or critical about the temps but then go on to say you like your pork at 185-190. That's a pretty tight range for someone not concerned with temperature. Why use a thermometer if your not concerned with temperature? Shouldn't matter if it's 175 or 200 right?

Smokin, "don't sweat the small stuff...cause it's all small" is very true. The book with this title is a good read.


John

JohnP, I'm sorry but I may have been a little too vague in my previous post. I think my communication skills may be more suited for the spoken word than the written. The points that I was trying to make were:
a) that there are differing opinions about cooking temperatures & internal temperatures of the finished product. Even though they all may have varying degrees of validity none should be taken as gospel. Experimentation with your personal smoker along with the quality of meat used & your own personal seasoning techniques will eventually establish your own cooking temps & times.

b) The reference to Paul Kirk ( 7 world championship barbecue titles & author of a couple of books on the subject) & his suggested internal temps for pork shoulder was just to demonstrate that a neophyte smoker like myself should cook the meat to his preference not to what some one has recommended. After all I'm the one eating the finished product.

Finally I did fail to mention that I don't use a thermometer in the pork shoulder when I smoke it. Using my smokette set at 230' & my seasoning techniques (injecting a marinade & using a dry rub on the outside of the pork shoulder), I have found that a smoking time of 2 hours per pound for the heaviest piece of meat will yeild me a perfectly done (for my tastes) pork shoulder. Once I take the shoulders out, I put a thermometer in & it always reads betweem 185'-195'. Now I don't say this will work for everybody but I'm happy with the results! I hope I didn't ramble on too long here. The next time I post, I'll try to collect my thoughts a little better & be a little clearer.

Had to share this with all you Q-ers. Was in the local (Northern NJ) Home Depot buying rib racks and noticed a dispal of Polder knock-off thermometers w/ no price on it. Turns out they were $3 each. Apparently a discontinued model called a Sunbeam Grillmaster. I bought a half dozen of them!
You may want to check your local Home Depot for these. They were hanging near the grill replacement parts.