Best single piece of advice to date came from TWSS. He said to start with a small fire and keep a small fire and feed it on a regular basis (I have since partitioned off part of my basket). Once I quit jamming the charcoal basket to the rim my temps quit spiking quite as much. I had such a huge flame, my firebox was glowing sometimes. Once I eased back and let the unit initially come up slowly (warm up takes me 1 - 1.5 hours now) then my adjustments were easier to make since my fire wasn't like a yo-yo burning so hot it was impossible to keep fuel for a steady burn. TWSS (and a whole bunch of the regulars) emphasized the need for a good base of hot coals, once you have that you just drop in 2 or 3 splits every 45 minutes or so. BTW, if I haven't said it enough ... thanks guys for sharing the knowledge, the 250 RF was a huge learning curve over my Webers but its been a fun ride once I started listening. Someone also noted positioning the charcoal basket, that helped me a bunch to pull it back from the smoker body as far as that side getting so much hotter. JMTCW hope it helpscjbarnwell wrote:Can you guys tell me how to get a more stable temp to hold for over an hour or so?
SoloQue wrote:Best single piece of advice to date came from TWSS. He said to start with a small fire and keep a small fire and feed it on a regular basis
That is something a whole bunch of folks dont realize when they think of going from a pristine perfect modern oven with electric fans and thermostats to cooking with charcoal. I work in an ISO9001 certified lab and we are all about documenting everything. Our $12K dollar ovens have up to 5 different temp zones of +- 10 degrees inside of them and they are only 2.5 ft cubes inside and even then they idle with a swing of +- 5 degrees once they hit set point. When folks are looking for flatline equal temps on a cooking surface like 30x70 it really needs to be considered in averages of over say 15 - 30 minute periods. When BBQ'ers utilize the electronic therms that are available it can drive folks crazy watching temps change. I had to just force myself to not touch things and see if temp changes were just bounces or rises or if they were actually falling or climbing off of set point. What I found was that I was getting real (short term) spikes shortly after feeding fuel (and huge spikes if I over fed) and I was getting slow continuous drops after about 45 minutes which to my amazement was just about time to add a few more splits. Pardon the sarcasm but I about drove myself nuts with too high expectations. It wasn't until a lab co-worker heard me griping and reminded me just how much our own hightech stuff drifts that I stepped back and took a chill pill so to speak. OK, once again I rambled into a paragragh but the content is in here somewhere. I almost took the incredible fun out of owning my own trailer cooker (once again thanks TQ) until I came to this understanding so I hope it has some usefulleness to your own situation.alleyrat58 wrote:Your electric / gas oven in your kitchen will swing up to 25 degrees in either direction from the set temp
dcman (The Czar) wrote:alleyrat and solo right at the same time? Is this even possible? Is something wrong with the quadratic formula?
It helps out if you're in a cold climate but under normal conditions a well built pit will maintain temp just as well. Insulating the fire box helps with wood consumption to some degree and it makes the outer shell of the FB cooler than a non insulated so a slight bump against it doesn't burn you or a child.Smokehouse40 wrote: ↑January 11th, 2022, 8:07 pmDoes insulation in the firebox help hold the temperature more stable I am sorry for they incorrect post of a head of this the microphone on the phone doesn’t Translate very Good