Best vent settings for overnight cooks (changes in wind)

[Smokingdadbbq]

Ever had your grill stable for an overnight cook and then woke up with the fire out?  The wind can play a deceiving role when dialling in your vents, I replicate some wind with a leaf blower to test the two most common approaches to stabilizing your grill to find out which is the best at maintaining temps  

 

https://youtu.be/E-URQmawckk

[David Godden]

Quote

 

James,

 

Great tips there. Like so many of the Guru's here, these tips are huge time saving learning tips.

Spending a day playing with the settings of the Kamado Joe Jr just to see how the different settings affect the stabilized temperatures. I know its not necessary to do an initial burn but its fun playing with the settings to figure out what they do.

 

"Experience and Practice" are words to live by. 

[jtemple]

The timing on this thread couldn't be better.

 

I did 4 pork butts overnight on my BJIII for my in-laws' 50th anniversary party.

 

That night, a storm rolled through. I'm talking about a serious, rip the siding and shingles off your house, darn near tornado speed winds, storm.

 

It blew my patio furniture out into the yard, ripped the cover off my gasser, and my neighbor's patio furniture busted part of my fence.

 

Our power went out that night, and was out through the next day.

 

My 2 Big Joes stayed firmly planted where they were. One was off and covered, the other one was cooking the 4 butts.

 

During the peak of the storm, something cause the lid to come loose on the Big Joe and the temperature spiked to 375. I don't know if it was the air pressure changes from the wind, or if a piece of patio furniture clipped the latch just enough to pop it loose.

 

The next morning, the fuel ran out, which was about 15 or so hours after the cook started. That was unusually quick for me, considering I have done 27-28 hour cooks with a good amount of charcoal left afterward.

 

I go with the small opening on the bottom vent setup, but I think the extreme wind, plus the time the lid was cracked open really contributed to the fuel running out faster.

 

The butts turned out great in the end though!

[jtemple]

The power went out and the battery was dying on my Fireboard, so I don't have data on the cook all the way to the end. Here's what I do have. The big spike was when the lid popped open during the storm, but as you can see, the temp and the fan speed was all over the place throughout the night.

[Charcoal Addict]

You can’t control the weather.  Those conditions were pretty extreme.

 

Small vent openings is all you need.  A temp controller can do a better job preventing too much air from entering the cooker.  
 

There’s not much you can do in an extreme wind storm like the one you had last night.

[CentralTexBBQ]

On 7/11/2021 at 9:20 AM, Smokingdadbbq said:

Ever had your grill stable for an overnight cook and then woke up with the fire out?  The wind can play a deceiving role when dialling in your vents, I replicate some wind with a leaf blower to test the two most common approaches to stabilizing your grill to find out which is the best at maintaining temps  

 

https://youtu.be/E-URQmawckk

 

Yes I absolutely have. Developing a strict precook regimine solved it for me. 

 

3 hours ago, jtemple said:

My 2 Big Joes stayed firmly planted where they were. One was off and covered, the other one was cooking the 4 butts.

 

During the peak of the storm, something cause the lid to come loose on the Big Joe and the temperature spiked to 375. I don't know if it was the air pressure changes from the wind, or if a piece of patio furniture clipped the latch just enough to pop it loose.

 

That's my experience, that even in hurricane force winds the Joe never budged. However, I have never experienced the lie opening due to wind either with my BJI or BJII.

 

3 hours ago, Charcoal Addict said:

There’s not much you can do in an extreme wind storm like the one you had last night.

 

Hmmmm, I have yet to have the wind affect my cooks and I've cooked in winds upward 70mph in both winter and summer (i.e., bomb cyclones, polar vortexes and remnants of a hurricanes). I simply pivot the KJ's bottom vent away from the direction of the wind. While the wind direction does change, I really haven't had it change 180º the opposite direction. I do think the newer Kontrol vent is a great help in this regard. The daisy wheel didn't have a wind break.

[Charcoal Addict]

On 7/18/2021 at 5:14 PM, CentralTexBBQ said:

 

Yes I absolutely have. Developing a strict precook regimine solved it for me. 

 

 

That's my experience, that even in hurricane force winds the Joe never budged. However, I have never experienced the lie opening due to wind either with my BJI or BJII.

 

 

Hmmmm, I have yet to have the wind affect my cooks and I've cooked in winds upward 70mph in both winter and summer (i.e., bomb cyclones, polar vortexes and remnants of a hurricanes). I simply pivot the KJ's bottom vent away from the direction of the wind. While the wind direction does change, I really haven't had it change 180º the opposite direction. I do think the newer Kontrol vent is a great help in this regard. The daisy wheel didn't have a wind break.

Most conditions will be fine.  Once you start getting wind above 100 KM an hour , you’re going to get more air than you want in the grill for a low & slow.

[CentralTexBBQ]

idk, as mentioned, I've never had an issue with brisket cooks during high winds