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As the title suggests, I am looking for help getting my Akorn to act the way I want it to for smoking purposes.
I have the smoking stone, use a water pan, and lower my dampers until it basically snuffs out my fire, but I cannot seem to keep my Akorn at 225.
Now, I will admit that I am new to smoking and that there is a lot to be learned, but I have read tons of guides and watched videos and replicated them to my best ability, but still cannot get it to work for me.
Currently, my process is this:
Open dampers all the way
Fill bottom of grill full of hardwood lump
Light with cotton balls soaked in alcohol
Toss in a couple chunks of hickory
Place my smoking stone
Place my water pan
Close lid and let set until 150
Close dampers halfway until 180
Close dampers again halfway until 210
Close dampers halfway one last time to about .5 on top and bottom.
1 of 2 things happens here. Either the temp keeps building to nearly 300 or the fire dies.
I play with the dampers making very small .5 adjustments to try and finagle it, but I cannot seem to get it right.
When I do seem to get the temps in a semi stable range around 230-260 (after LOTS of adjustments), after about an hour I go to spritz my meat with some apple juice and the temps take off again (Obviously because I just fed it a lot of oxygen) and never seem to come back down.
I have read about this "volcano" method of lighting the coals, but I literally have not found any videos or pictures on how to set that up.
Basically, I have no idea what I am doing wrong and I could use someone being critical of my process to give me some advice and direction.
Hi all you Smokers out there ...... This is an awesome cook if you want to give it a try.
I thought this casserole would be good smoked so I thought I'd give it a try and it blew me away when I ate it. It really took on that smokey flavor and was outstanding. It is a Beef & Potato casserole with sliced onion, diced red peppers, cream of mushroom soup, and graded cheddar cheese.
It really turned out good so go fire up those smokers and give it a try .... you'll be glad you did.
I said in my Christmas cook thread that I’ve been away from cooking since the last week in October but I did manage to get the Thanksgiving turkey cooked on the kamado. As there was just going to be the 3 of us we ended up having dinner over at our next door neighbor house. (They were very kind to invite us) They were making everything else but wanted me to cook the turkey in the kamado. I was already going to do one so how could I refuse. I used my stand-by recipe I’ve used for the last 4 years. (Recipe: https://www.kamadoguru.com/topic/7524-smoked-turkey/) Here are the pics I managed to take.
On Wednesday I made up the brine. Ingredients:
Cooking.
That evening I placed the turkey in my food safe 4 gallon bucket with the brine. I placed that inside an ice chest and placed some ice around the bucket.
and covered with ice and let it sit overnight.
Here it is the next morning.
Took it out and patted it dry.
Made up the seasoned butter rub. (For under the skin and on the skin)
and got the aromatics ready to go in the interior cavity.
Placed it on the preheated kamado.
We also brought over some Cranberry Apple & Walnut Dressing that we love. (Recipe: https://www.kamadoguru.com/topic/8441-cranberry-apple-walnut-dressing/)
Here’s a pic of the finished turkey with the dressing in the background.
This is when Husker gives me his plea for some of the wonderful smelling food that’s driving him crazy.
After this there wasn’t many opportunities to take any pics but here is the one pic I managed to take with my cell phone.
As you can see there was quite a feast on the table and everyone enjoyed the turkey.
Thanks for looking.
My coworker harvested a nice buck on opening day, and shared some venison. I had been making jerky out of most of the meat, but this time I tried Venison Sticks. The collagen casings were more difficult to link than natural casings. These turned out more the texture of a summer sausage than the deer sticks I have gotten from other hunters. Still tasty, but not what I was expecting. I will have to look for some other recipes.
Alright I think I need some help from y'all. Had my Chargriller Akorn now for 18 months and use it at least once a week. I've perfected nearly everything except for brisket. I've smoked three briskets and every one ends up dry. Tender but dry. Today I tried John Setzler's brisket method where instead of wrapping at the stall you put it in a pan with onion, pepper, garlic, and beer. I used apple juice though. I smoked it at 275 and was able to hid the temp there for the entire smoke portion. It stalled around 165 so I took it off and placed in a pan with the onion, pepper, garlic, and apple juice. Oh and some Stubbs honey pecan bbq sauce. I was smoking with pecan wood. The IT rose steadily up to 195 and I checked with a probe. It wasn't probe tender. So I let it go for a bit longer. It held at 200 for about an hour. I checked one other time and it still wasn't very probe tender. But was better than the first check. After an hour of not moving past 201 I decided to pull it. In John's video he didn't rest it. Just sliced it and returned back to the liquid in the pan. I let it rest for 30 mins and then sliced it. It was perfectly tender. Passed the hang test. But it was still pretty dry. You can see from the pics. It was very flavorful and pull apart tender. But I really want to get the dryness figured out. Any thoughts?