Temperature Control???

[tykenn28]

Hey everybody!!!! So because our metal wasn't here in time our smoker wont be done in time for any practice runs. It's a 250 gallon RF  and we're smoking a hog Saturday. I realize this is far from ideal but it's the cards we were dealt. so just curious how much wood I should have in the firebox to maintain 230-250 in a 250 gallon tank? I've seen posts about too big of a fire and you get bad smoke. Hopefully a few of you out there with similar size tanks can offer some guidance since we won't have time for any practice runs

 

[lendecatural]

The main think I can think of is to get the smoker hot and stabilized before you put meat on. Maybe start with a couple chimneys of charcoal to establish your coal bed and then throw 3-4 splits on to get it up to temperature. Hold that for as much time as you have to make sure you get thin blue smoke, then put on the pig. Make note of where the vents are opened and you will know what steady looks like and don't open it up too much more after putting on the hog so you don't overshoot. Starting first thing with a hog would be a bit scary, but take your time, it will settle down.

 

[tykenn28]

That's exactly what I was going to do to start. I think we'll have 5-6 hrs to play with temp before pig has to go on. 250 gallon is just so much bigger than anything I've ever cooked on so I'm nervous. Obviously less than ideal circumstances but the pig has been purchased for a month and our metal just hasn't been done yet. What's a guy to do. Tomorrow is going to be a long day of welding and fabrication but we should still be able to make it work. ugh we should have had our metal three weeks ago but they're doing us a huge favor on it so we can't really complain. Anyway, I'll post more progress pics to the original build thread as soon as we get back to work. thanks for the advice