ProQ frontier - maintaining heat

[Bigcuts]

Hoping someone can help! So I used my ProQ frontier for the first time yesterday - relatively successful cook of a 2kg pork shoulder and belly ribs. Some issues I had which I’m hoping someone can help with:

1. I used water and after reading many posts on the forum, think I should be using sand instead. Roughly how much should I use?

2. I struggled to get the heat beyond 95 at the latter part of the cook and I think this is how I added Proq cocoshell cubes. After using the minion method, is there an efficient way of topping up? The door is quite small and I didn’t want to take the stackers off to avoid heat loss. It was quite difficult to add and I just couldn’t raise the temp. All vents were open as well. It was a bit windy and shielded as best I could. 
 

3. I bought a digital meat probe (leave in) which registered well until around 70 degrees but didn’t change for some time. As we needed to eat I took it out to  put in the oven to finish off but when I used an ‘analogue’ thermometer it registered the same temp. Reinserted a different digital and it read 90! 
 

If anyone can help it would be much appreciated!

[U can do that again]

Welcome, I use the Napoleon version of the pro q.

i use water but always from the hot tap to start, if topping up tend to boil a kettle leave for couple of mins then fill, not found the need to  change yet, do line water pan with foil easier to clean up.

The wind is a killer temps wise in my experience, invested in a gazebo with sides to protect from wind.

Normally use a mix of lump, Weber brickettes & coconut, if really struggling with temps, add lighted fuel first then unlit-to boost things with tongs,  trial and error to see what works for you. Have removed the rings to dump a fully lit chimney before.

normally top fully open , bottom vents reduced airflow, one facing the wind fully closed, have found this helps maintain a stable temp for longer, easier to shut a burn down & reuse than try to bring it back up to temp in my experience.

sounds like he dreaded stall, loads of info on the stall on here & the web, did you wrap?

all part of the smoking experience as other days temps race away & need bringing down

might be worth compiling a ‘diary’ so you can see what effect your action had in certain conditions to evolve your preferred technique.

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Thanks @U can do that again - really appreciate the response. 
 

I didn’t wrap the meat as read some do, some don’t as it can affect the bark. Will probably do that next time - is that something you’d recommend?
 

Will also try the fuel mix as you suggest. 

 

Thanks again!