Hey guys! So if you saw my intro post you know I just bought my first kettle. I'm in the learning phase, of course.
So for my first cook I smoked 2 slabs of ribs. I used the bank + bricks method. I had a bit of trouble getting the temp to settle in, partly because I'm so new to Kettles. But I'm also pretty sure I was probably not waiting long enough for adjustments to take effect. I was looking for somewhere between 225 and 250. I had the bottom and top vents both at around a quarter open. It it felt like it was taking forever for the temp to get above 200. It finally did though, and stayed between there and 225 for the rest of the cook.
I wrapped them at 3 hours and the internal temp was around 150 then. They didn't seem like they were making much progress to me though, like they were cooking too low. After two hours wrapped they were looking much better, pulling away from the bones and IT was around 190. I gave it another hour unwrapped and then pulled them off. All in all they came out pretty good, but I felt like they weren't in the sweet spot long enough.
Next I decided to just take a day to experiment with some temp control using charcoal and no meat. I set up a snake method this time, two wide and two high. By then I had done some youtube searching and learned about the concept of only using the bottom damper to control temp and leaving the top vent wide open. So I got about 5 coals lit and placed them at the end of the snake. Then I just sat there making adjustments and watching how long it took.
This time I started with the bottom vent at a quarter open and the top vent wide open. Again it seemed like it was taking the grill grate temp a long time to get to temp, but maybe it was the whole "watched pot never boils" thing. One thing I noticed right away though was that with the top vent wide open the smoke was was much cleaner. It even smelled sweeter. There was definitely a difference that, at least for me, gave a lot of validity to the whole "stale smoke" thing. I used applewood chuncks both times and the smell was definitely different on this test run.
Anyway, so I kept fiddling with the bottom vent until it went up to 250 and stayed there for a while until I finally closed both vents to shut it down. Thinking I'd figured it out, I set out to do another cook. this time I'd smoke some wings. Using info I "thought" I'd learned from the first two attempts (lol) I set up another snake. I wanted to be around 275 for the wings so I thought adding another layer to the snake would do it. I went two wide, two high and then I put another single layer across the top.
Seeking to fix the whole "slow crawl to temp" thing I set the bottom temp wide open, thinking this would help it get to temp faster. Then I could just gradually back down. Well that didn't happen! It was really taking a long time to get to temp. It never got there in fact, and I had both vents wide open the whole time. I was losing time and lots of great smoke, so I put the wings on anyway and let them go for an hour to an hour and a half. After that I took them off and seared them a bit on the gas grill, since I really didn't have a hot side on the kettle.
They turned out great. Great smoke flavor, great color. But aside from the fact that the bank method is probably the one I'll be using moving forward, I"m not sure I learned much about quickly getting the grill up to temp and then maintaining it. I think I had more problems with getting it there though rather than maintaining it once it got there.
I'll be doing much more smoking than grilling on my kettle so this part is important for me to master. And FWIW, I'm definitely the set-it-and-forget it type. I don't want to fiddle with mine every half hour. I want to set it up, get it to temp then park myself on the deck with a nice drink and some good music, just watching the smoke roll and smelling the sweet aroma. Comments and advice welcome!