Guitarbloke

I've filled my water pan with sand but the temps are still around 305-310F and I'm trying to get down to 240F.  

I've got the top vent open and only 1 open on the bottom.   Any ideas what I can do to bring it down a bit?  I'm using CPL restaurant grade charcoal in minion if that makes a difference?

3 hours ago, Icefever said:

There should be no need for that,  I found sand far better,  buy a bag of play sand from B&M or Homebase......my first run with it was way better than water....held temp a lot better.

 

Ice.

I'll try that, cheers Ice!  Do you fill the whole water pan with sand or just half?

23 hours ago, Icefever said:

I know how your feeling, I've now given up on water in the pan, I use sand..also I get better rusults with the top vent only part open and use this vent to control the temp.

 

Ice.

Oh I'm glad it's not just me! 

I'll try sand next time.  I did eventually manage to get things balanced a bit - I took out the water and let the temp come back up, then I added a small amount of water with a watering can every 45mins or so.  Managed to get a stable 230F, so not the 250F I wanted but it was enough to finish my cook.

It's been a while since I've had a chance to use my Frontier (a combination of a broken foot and bad weather put paid to any hopes over the last month or so).

But today I thought I'd fire it up once the rain stopped and the sun came out.

But I'm having issues with the temperature rising far too slowly and not consistently, and I'm not sure exactly why...

I'm only using 2 out of the 3 stackers, and all the vents are open, but its still hovering at 190F on the inkbird. Before I added the water pan (full of hot water) it was hitting 300F.  I added the water and put 2 racks of ribs on when it got down to 250F, but the temp kept dropping.  I thought it might stabilise so I left the ribs in but it's been almost an hour now and still crawling from 190F upwards.

Oddly enough whilst typing this, it has just shot up from 190 to 199F before my eyes, but seems to dropping back again  now (now back to 190F).  It's at a shady side of the house where its protected from the elements in case it rains.

And back up to 198F now...no 194F... no 199F...nope 190F... Argh!  last time I cooked on the Frontier it was so easy, and stabilised well. 

I'm thinking I've done something differently this time, but not sure what (other than opening all the vents this time to try and lift the temps)

I'm using minion the method and the briquettes are still burning away happily.

Any ideas?  The sun has come out so I've relocated it to a sunnier spot in the garden although it's now 185F... 🤦🏽‍♂️🙈

EDIT - emptied the water pan and the temp skyrocketed to 290F. Closed off 2 vents, so just the top vent fully open and 1 bottom vent.  Added a **small** amount of water back in to try and bring it back down but now its dropping too far again (seems to be hovering at 220F which is better than before but still a long way from 250F)

1 hour ago, Icefever said:

What about this one....I fancy cooking it this weekend.... 

 

I don't think I've tried that one! 

I still have some buttermilk left so I'll give that a go 😁  Cheers Ice!

20 hours ago, Icefever said:

Can't help on this one...what about the Tube.???

 

Ice.

Yup, I've tried a few different YT vids but still no joy.  It can only be something I'm doing wrong, but I'll be buggered if I can figure out what lol 

I absolutely love cornbread as a side when I eat bbq, but for some reason I just can’t seem to get it right.  It’s always dry, no matter what I do.

I’ve tried various combinations of adding more milk, more butter, an extra egg, cooking for a little less time/lower heat etc, etc but it’s almost always on the dry side.

I’m baking it in a cast iron skillet at around 190C (fan assisted oven) for approx 20mins.

Does anyone have any tips on where I might be going wrong?

23 hours ago, Wade said:

As well as rain the other things that can affect the temperature are wind and (would you believe it...) the sun

Try to position your smoker in a sheltered spot as a wind will quickly cause the temperature to drop. Also if you start your smoker in the shade and the sun moves round so that it puts the smoker in full sun, you can see the internal temperature increase by as much as 20 C.

Thanks Wade, that seems like some sound advice!   

I think I know the perfect spot, there's a little decked area to the side of the conservatory where it'll be shielded from the elements on 3 sides - that ought to do the trick!

1 minute ago, Mack said:

Best method is... Light your fire in the base, place the waterpan in the stacker, then lift the whole stacker by the side handles and place this on to the base.

Haha!! Ok well now I feel pretty silly!!  

In hindsight that's so obvious!  🙈😂

Thanks Ian!!! 😁👍

12 hours ago, sub333 said:

The first couple of times I used my Frontier was our lovely weather in early June, where it chucked it down most days – even had a hailstorm one afternoon! The temperature plummeted after a few minutes of that, down to about 125-150 from 250-275. So now I use an old fishing umbrella that I slot into a parasol base which protects my smoker from the rain but it's still high enough above it to let the smoke circulate. 

That's a great idea - It'll certainly keep things going until I can convince the missus that I 'need' a BBQ shack  

Cheers Ice!  

Yeah, those spring clips can get pretty toasty!   I'll drop Ian a line and see if he can help out with the silicon cover  

Right, well it sounds like a gazebo might be the order of the day - hopefully 'er indoors won't mind me keeping it up the whole year round, as I'm not planning on using the oven ever again!!  

So this weekend (Saturday) I had my first run with my shiny new ProQ Frontier.

First of all,  the thing that surprised me perhaps the most, was how much easier it was to get a stable temperature compared to my gas grill!

With the gas bbq I'm constantly back and forth adjusting the dials or popping the lid to lower the temp etc.

The ProQ was ridiculously simple - I set up a full basket of Weber briquettes using the minion method, and chucked in a few handfuls of soaked apple wood chips, filled the water pan and let it do its thing.  I did struggle to put the full water pan into the Frontier directly over the lit coals, and ended up sloshing a load over the charcoal basket and down into the base of the bbq...🙄 

Anyway lol... Temp initially rose slowly to 270F-ish and then gradually dropped and settled at around 230F.  I used my Inkbird to monitor temps.

I threw on a spatchcocked chicken that I'd marinated the night before and it was done in about 2 hours. Quite literally no babysitting needed!

Annoyingly though, I got a nasty burn as the silicon cover on one of the bottom vents split (apparently during the cooking, as it was fine when I built the bbq during the week).  When I went to adjust the vent at the end of the cook,  my finger ended up gripping bare searing hot metal... Yowwch! 😣  

Then today (Sunday), I wasn't planning on cooking as we were out for the day (funnily enough we spent an unplanned hour at a bbq store because they had a Kamado demo going on when we wandered by).  However,  that put me in the mood for some 'cue, but with most of the day gone there was only time got a quick grill job. 

So I took the stackers off the Frontier and put the grill right over the basket.   Grilled up some salmon fillets,  skewered prawns and some nice sausages.  It worked a treat!  I can't see my Broil King, Landmann or Weber Smokey Joe getting much of a look-in going forwards!!

Couple of things I discovered that I need to work on though - I'm never quite sure how much charcoal is enough in the basket.   There was loads left after Saturday's cook (I had put in about 3kg of briquettes), so I recycled them for the following day - they were half burned though, is this ok to do?

Also, I need to organise myself a little better - my timings are awful and I can never get everything ready at the same time!

I'm not sure what to try next,  I might get some babybacks this week if next weekend's weather looks promising.  Do you guys still cook in the rain?  Does it affect temps?

Haha!  Yeah it's a great little pub!  Small world lol 😁

1 hour ago, sub333 said:

Welcome @epangelia2k2 – I'm just down the road (ish) in Berkhamsted. This site has given me a stack of useful advice so far – some pretty clued-up BBQers here 😋

Apologies for the utterly shameless plug, but I couldn't resist - if you're a fan of live music (70s-80s rock) my band will be playing at The Goat in Berkhamsted on the 20th!  

Welcome @epangelia2k2! 

22 minutes ago, Montyb82 said:

How did you find the clasps? One set on mine didn't line up very well and another has a thick gauge of wire sticking out of it preventing it from shutting properly easy fixes but a touch annoying

Hmmm.. I don't believe I noticed anything untoward - I'll have a closer inspection of the clasps when I get home tonight though and let you know

2 hours ago, Mack said:

Welcome to the ProQ Family Guitarbloke!

Good quality briquettes give a more consistent burn due to their uniform shape and lumpwood can have spikes in temperature due to it being inconsistent in size.

Be warned that with all types of fuel, there are good and bad versions... we've noticed quite a few brands of coconut charcoal now available, unfortunately they're not all made the same. If after a burn, you're left with loads of ash, this is usually an indication that the manufacturer has used fillers (which can be just about anything) to bulk up the product.

 

Chuck on an Chook for your first run, but bear in mind that this is "Low n Slow", so expect it to take around 3.5 hours. Also with chicken the smoke reacts with the flash to produce a pink colouring near the bone which people often mistake for the meat being uncooked. Get yourself a good quality digital probe thermometer, as this is the best way of determining whether or not food is done.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

 

Ian

Thanks Ian, I'll experiment with both lump and briquettes and see what I prefer.  Sounds like briquettes might be easier but we'll see!

That's interesting about the pink colouring on the chicken - I didn't know that and would have probably let it keep on cooking!!

Will report back once I've done my first cook (most likely this weekend) 

9 minutes ago, Icefever said:

As Phil said do a run and throw a chuck on that way you get dinner and learn about the air vents.

Ice.

Yeah I think that's probably a good idea! 

I've got 16kg of Weber briquettes sitting in the shed at the moment, so I'll have a first run with those, but I'll pick up some restaurant grade lump from Amazon and use that for the second try and compare them.  

Is there much of a difference? I think I had read somewhere that lump didn't burn as consistently as briquettes, but I can't recall where I read that now.

2 minutes ago, Icefever said:

I got talking to Ian at Brew'N'Q and I asked him about "seasoning" and he said that there was no need for it, as it's porcelain coated 1mm steel,  just a wipe with a hot soapy cloth is enough.

 

Ice.

That's really handy to know!  I'll still go with a dry run anyway as you suggest though - if only to get my temp control technique nailed 😁

1 hour ago, Phlashster said:

Congratulations. New BBQ day is fantastic. Actually, old BBQ day is fantastic too.

Good advice from Ice. Although I somehow managed to chuck a chicken on for my dummy run. 😆 

There are a few Pro Q threads on here that are worth a read. Some are struggles, some are tales of wonderous joy when things work just right. Some are mixed in other sections so worth doing a search. 

Have fun, Phil.

Cheers Phil,  must admit I'm pretty excited, I've only cooked a couple of times with charcoal in the past (just a few rather sad looking sausages and burgers), so I'm looking forward to the learning curve!

I'm currently just reading through every ProQ thread I can lay my hands on.   At this rate, I reckon I'll be an expert before I even fire her up! 😂

And you're absolutely right - any BBQ day is fantastic! 😀

2 hours ago, Icefever said:

Welcome to the club GB these smokers are really well made and of good quality,  so what's planned for the first cook on her?? may I suggest you do a dry run, a few bits of lump or whatever you use,  stick a thermo on the top grill and watch the temp as you adjust the airvents.

Ice,

 

 

Thanks Ice!  I think I'm going to start out with something nice and easy as cooking with charcoal is relatively new to me - maybe a chicken or some babybacks 😋

Good idea about the dummy run, it'll be useful for me to learn how to control the temps (and also burn off any gunk from the factory!).  I've been reading a lot about something called the 'minion method' which sounds like it might be pretty effective, so I reckon I'll give that a try and keep an eye on temp with the Inkbird while I fiddle with the vents.

Apologies in advance, this post is pic heavy just to show to anyone who might be thinking of getting one of these.

So, my ProQ Frontier arrived today.  I was supposed to be going out on a work do this evening, but I made an excuse as I was far more interested on getting home to put my new bbq together! 😂

First impressions upon opening the box were that it was incredibly well packaged, plenty of polystyrene and packing cardboard keeping all the parts well separated and protected. The individual stackers, lid, base, grills, basket and pan were also all wrapped and protected in plastic

The next thing that struck me was how few pieces there were to put together.   Having spent a good 3 hours or so assembling a Landmann in the past, this was a huge relief!  In fact there were only 6 pieces and 6 screws to contend with (for attaching the legs) - see photo.  Just as well really,  since as I explained to @Icefever earlier today,  when it comes to doing anything remotely handy, I'm a cross between Frank Spencer and Mr Bean!

This is all there was to do! (I left hooks in the picture, so ignore those)

The legs were the only fiddly part of the build for me - although that could well be my cack-handedness at play there!  Everything else just slotted together as per the clear diagram in the manual.

The whole unit feels solid and good quality.  I haven't put it outside just yet, on the albeit slim off-chance that it rains (I have a cover on order), so it's residing in the kitchen for now, but I'll give it a go later this week.

A few pics below of the unpacking and build.   Overall I'm very impressed and haven't even used it yet!

10 hours ago, hoogl said:

That's a nightmare. Could you have fashioned a make shift charcoal basket or something and finished cook that way? 

Dammit, didn't even cross my mind!  I just panicked and ran for the oven 🙈

Gave it another 2.5 hours in the oven at 130C and just about managed to salvage it!  Unfortunately I couldn't get a good bark on them, but they tasted pretty good for a near-disaster!

Think I may have overestimated just how many ribs I needed though - there's no way I could eat all 4!  I was stuffed after 2 of them!  Looks like it's ribs for dinner tomorrow as well (and maybe Tuesday too!) 😂

Pic attached of the final result (Mrs Guitarbloke thought I should put something in the picture for scale, and the lighter was the first thing I found in my bbq drawer!!)

Arrgh! 2 hours into smoking my rack of beef ribs, I ran out of gas, and at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon 🙄😭  Finishing off in the oven now,  but it won't be the same.

I can't wait to make the jump to charcoal,  I have a ProQ Frontier on order and a shed full of briquettes, so hopefully this will be a thing of the past!!

I've got a Kentucky Smoker which I picked up for £99 in a sale.

I haven't yet used it for smoking, only for some direct grilling, which seems fine.  But I understand that these things leak smoke like a good'un.

To those of you who have modded theirs - Is it worth the trouble of modding, or would I be better off getting something like a ProQ Elite or WSM and keeping the Kentucky just for grilling?