Just salted & seasoned up an 8 1/2 pound pork butt. Got the smoker goin', it's showin' 266 right now. I have trouble keeping my heat down low enough... I'd rather keep it at 220-225, but there's no real good way to regulate it. It's a pellet-burner, and it has presets. Putting it at 225 gets me fluctuating usually between 230-270. If I set it at 180, I'll run 160 most of the time. 
I may experiment with just keeping the lid a tiny bit cracked today. I DID have some low-quality pellets once that burned cooler, but alot more ash and less smoke. The temp was more where I wanted it, but I don't want to waste pellets and have more by-product and less flavor. So I'm still working on things...
The reason for the fluctuation is the auger speed - it's intermittent at the lower speeds, so it feeds and stops, feeds and stops. It doesn't actually monitor the temp, it just has presets based on factory settings. The funny thing is, though, even using manufacturer pellets (Traegar, which are not considered very good), it doesn't cook where I want it.
Since I've been writing this post, I'm at 252F. Gonna go crack the lid a bit... butt goes on at 8, ribs about 10 or 11.
I may experiment with just keeping the lid a tiny bit cracked today. I DID have some low-quality pellets once that burned cooler, but alot more ash and less smoke. The temp was more where I wanted it, but I don't want to waste pellets and have more by-product and less flavor. So I'm still working on things...The reason for the fluctuation is the auger speed - it's intermittent at the lower speeds, so it feeds and stops, feeds and stops. It doesn't actually monitor the temp, it just has presets based on factory settings. The funny thing is, though, even using manufacturer pellets (Traegar, which are not considered very good), it doesn't cook where I want it.
Since I've been writing this post, I'm at 252F. Gonna go crack the lid a bit... butt goes on at 8, ribs about 10 or 11.
