Hi, I’m no expert and as I said this was done as a learning exercise as much as anything else as it is such a different beast to the MT I’ve previously used.
I bought a cheap rolled boneless shoulder - 2.5kg as currently on offer in Tesco @ 3.50/kg (rather than risk an expensive Butt if it all went pear shaped). I trimmed and salted it the night before with about 2 teaspoons course sea salt and left it in fridge. Early rise and nearly filled the fire bowl but wouldn’t do that next time as so little charcoal was used, I lit a handful of charcoal using my Weber chimney starter and put that in the middle of the firebow then sprinkled some Apple chips around the coals - not sure how much 100g or so and closed the lid. I rubbed the meat with Meatheads Memphis dust - 2or 3 tablespoons and rechecked the Kamado. This is when things went wrong as the temperature rose faster than expected so I closed all vents and crossed my fingers. As it happened the dome thermometer was reading high as already mentioned so things weren’t as bad as feared when I get the meat on and temp was soon OK.
I then did very little other than play adjusting the vents periodically to try keeping the temp around 107ºC. I didn’t open the lid during the cook/add more chips.
What would I do differently? Use less charcoal (not that it was wasted as closing the vents at the end left loads unburnt for next time), work out how to add wood chips mid cook as smoke flavour was lacking because not all had been used up/ not enough used - I’m still coming to terms with just how efficient this thing is. Give myself more time - I’d now be confident to start it the night before and leave it with little or no intervention.
Am I on the right track?