Anyone do Overnight Smokes?

[flyhigh123]

Tha'ts why i bought the Amazen smoker..

this weekend, going to put in a pork butt and maybe some other stuff, set the MES to 225 and light the amazensmoker...

hoping to wake up around 9 am to the pork being cooked... at that time i'll foil for a few more hours to get it to 190....

 

[smokeaddict]

Reading this thread I am awed by the attention, the dedication, the sheer love of doing something that motivates you to do stuff in the middle of the night for your friends/partners/children etc ! I tips me lid to ya !

(just jealous, 'cos I'm a lazy bastard.....)

 

[smokinbrent]

I've done several butt's on my Traeger..put em in at 9 pm and dont even LOOK at em till 6 am..lol doing another tomorrow nite as well.

 

[roller]

My first butt took all night 16hrs and it was a long night because I stayed with it and so did a couple guys on here that kept me company and alot of Beer...It turned out real good...That was last year.

 

[figjam]

I'll be doing my first overnight later this year.  My wife picked up a 14# brisket on sale at Wal Mart.  Rough guess is to plan for 21 hours.  I will likely start it around 8pm on a Fri night and make sure the first four hours are going good, then crash at midnight and plan on waking up around 6.  This way it can finish any time after noon on Sat and I can simply take it off, foil it, wrap it in towels and throw it in the cooler while I get whatever else we are eating ready.

 

[Fife]

I saw some video on youtube with people doing this and it seems like it turned out great.

 

[ravanelli]

I'd like to do an all-nighter but I'm using a horizontal offset, so I need to add fuel every hour unlike you lucky guys with the plug in smokers!  Maybe in the summer when it's warmer at night and I have a hammock setup I'll give it a try.  

 

[SmokinAl]

I do all nighters all the time on my WSM. I've had 1 load of charcoal go 20 hours  @ 210-220.

 

[irie]

I do all nighters all the time on my WSM. I've had 1 load of charcoal go 20 hours  @ 210-220.

X2 my last 3 smokes on my wsm have been over nights and they all turned out great. The last one took a little over 18 hours at around 210/220* to cook a 9.8lb butt to 198* internal. Best of all, no charcoal refill! I start it with the charcoal ring filled as high as it will go with out interfering with the water pan and get it started with 2 or 3 big pieces of lump charcoal.

By the way I never foil anymore because prefer the way the bark turns out. I dont even lift the lid unless I absolutely have to the entire cooking process.

 

[ak1]

I do all nighters many times when I'm doing brisket or pork shoulder. Usually I get the UDS started around 8-9pm, make sure temps are good and keep an eye on it until midnight just to make sure all is good. Go to bed and I usually wake up around 7 am. 

 

[figjam]

I'd like to do an all-nighter but I'm using a horizontal offset, so I need to add fuel every hour unlike you lucky guys with the plug in smokers!  Maybe in the summer when it's warmer at night and I have a hammock setup I'll give it a try.  

Ain't no plug in here, baby.

 

[figjam]

X2 my last 3 smokes on my wsm have been over nights and they all turned out great. The last one took a little over 18 hours at around 210/220* to cook a 9.8lb butt to 198* internal. Best of all, no charcoal refill! I start it with the charcoal ring filled as high as it will go with out interfering with the water pan and get it started with 2 or 3 big pieces of lump charcoal.

By the way I never foil anymore because prefer the way the bark turns out. I dont even lift the lid unless I absolutely have to the entire cooking process.

Was just gonna ask about this.  I am not using lump, so I will have to give myself a bit more room to be able to put about a 1/2-3/4 chimney's worth of lit briquettes.
 

 

[irie]

I have never used briquettes in my smoker so I cant give you a definitive answer but are you sure you need that much to get it going? As long as I put in my starter lump when its red hot I usually only use 3 or 4 large pieces placed in the middle of my charcoal ring and it will slowly get the whole thing going. As far as I can tell it burns pretty evenly too considering the large variation in size of the pieces of lump im get in my bags. Hopefully someone else that uses briquettes can chime in but I would imagine, 8-10 fully lit briquettes dropped in the middle of a full ring would do the job just fine.

 

[reardenreturns]

I wish I could, but someone would walk off with my smoker.. or at least the meat. Living in a townhouse in a major urban city makes it tough to smoke when you don't have a yard.

 

[smokinbrent]

Fig..that's EXACTLY how I do mine.. NICE thing about the traeger/pellet grills is they have PLENTY to run thru the nite and most of the next day w/out having to feed em..

 

[figjam]

I have never used briquettes in my smoker so I cant give you a definitive answer but are you sure you need that much to get it going? As long as I put in my starter lump when its red hot I usually only use 3 or 4 large pieces placed in the middle of my charcoal ring and it will slowly get the whole thing going. As far as I can tell it burns pretty evenly too considering the large variation in size of the pieces of lump im get in my bags. Hopefully someone else that uses briquettes can chime in but I would imagine, 8-10 fully lit briquettes dropped in the middle of a full ring would do the job just fine.

I might have to play around with the methods a bit.  When I did some ribs recently, I put in about a 1/2 ring of unlit briquettes shoved over to one side.  I dumped a 1/2 chimney of charcoal on the other side, making sure that a few lit briquettes overlapped the unlit ones.  This gets my temps up quicker but still uses the minion method.  Seems if you put some in the middle it will burn outward quicker than coming across (hopefully I described what I am thinking good enough).

 

[garyt]

Perfect advice
 

I have done 2 in my short smoking experience. the first one was miserable and the 2nd one wasn't bad at all. it was pretty comical watching neighbors go in for the night and seeing there faces the next day when they see you are still out. one thing I learned on the first all nighter is leave the beer for your buddies that get to stagger home and get in bed when they want!!! put the sattellite on some classic country and limit the fashionable adult beverages and stay with it and all will b good

 

[irie]

I might have to play around with the methods a bit.  When I did some ribs recently, I put in about a 1/2 ring of unlit briquettes shoved over to one side.  I dumped a 1/2 chimney of charcoal on the other side, making sure that a few lit briquettes overlapped the unlit ones.  This gets my temps up quicker but still uses the minion method.  Seems if you put some in the middle it will burn outward quicker than coming across (hopefully I described what I am thinking good enough).

I gotcha, that makes sense. I dont think there is really a wrong way to start a fire using the minion method it really comes down to personal preference. I have seen and heard of people doing all kinds of variation on the same basic idea of lighting a big fire slowly with a small fire so as long as it works for you stick with it. I am kind of the opposite when getting my smoker going I would rather have the temperature climb slowly under my control opposed to raising rapidly and then potentially have to fight to get it back down. (learned that the hard way my first smoke) If your willing to experiment I think you will be surprised how rapidly it will still get up to temperature even using just a few lit coals to get the fire started. Granted im using a WSM and relatively speaking when compared to some of the full size rigs guys build and compete with I only have to heat something with the volume equivalent to their fire box haha.

I am a big fan of learning things the hard way no matter how painful, or costly for that matter... but that's how I learn best. Dive head first and then sort things out afterward.
 

 

[figjam]

I gotcha, that makes sense. I dont think there is really a wrong way to start a fire using the minion method it really comes down to personal preference. I have seen and heard of people doing all kinds of variation on the same basic idea of lighting a big fire slowly with a small fire so as long as it works for you stick with it. I am kind of the opposite when getting my smoker going I would rather have the temperature climb slowly under my control opposed to raising rapidly and then potentially have to fight to get it back down. (learned that the hard way my first smoke) If your willing to experiment I think you will be surprised how rapidly it will still get up to temperature even using just a few lit coals to get the fire started. Granted im using a WSM and relatively speaking when compared to some of the full size rigs guys build and compete with I only have to heat something with the volume equivalent to their fire box haha.

I am a big fan of learning things the hard way no matter how painful, or costly for that matter... but that's how I learn best. Dive head first and then sort things out afterward.
 

I'm using a WSM as well, so I think I will try your method on my next smoke.  You are correct in that some times my temps get too hot too fast and I have to shut down all my bottom vents for a period before opening one back up in order to regulate.  I might be better tossing on only a few lit briquettes, keeping all 3 open, then closing 2 when the temps get up to about 200-210 (ala how the demo is done on the virutalbullet site).

 

[cpfitness]

Time to bump this thread!  I have a 4th of july bbq and I've got 2 small briskets (3lbs each) and a 9.5lb pork shoulder.  The couple of times i've done pork shoulder they have definately taken their sweet time to finish.  I'm contemplating doing it overnight but I have a relatively el cheapo smoker.  My food has come out good in the past but I've definately had to pay a lot of attention to the coals.  The last 2 times I smoked, I put a single layer of coals in the fire box and then dumped in a full chimney of charcoal on top of them.  That definately made for too much initially.  Do you guys think If i dump significant coals in the box and then only use 1/2 to a1/4 chimney to light it that I'll be okay?   FWIW, I pretty much always use kingsford.  I live in NYC, it's not always easy to get to a home depot and when I do, they 2 20lb bags together for like $10-12 or something crazy so it's cheap and good.  I will go out and get some lump coals if you guys think that is better, I'm just a bit worried because I've never used lump much before.

Anybody have any other suggestions to offer?  Pictured below is my smoker.  IT's your pretty standard offset box $179 model from Home depot.  I made a minor modification on the inside where I bent the drip pan up on the left side to deflect the heat down and around the entire smoker better.  I'm planning to try to extend the chimney down deeper inside as well.  Also pictured are my most recent attemps at pulled pork, brisket and ribs that all were big hits.

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