So some of you know that I was having some issues getting to an appropriate cooking temp in my #3. So I bypassed the controller and plugged the unit into an Auber PID. I had no time to do any type of test run so I dove right in and cooked two 8 lb pork shoulders for a small office Christmas lunch for 20 people. The lunch is today (Friday) at noon. I'm in charge of pulled pork and bbq beans.
As it turns out, everything was stacked against me:
- New Controller that I've never used
- Cold front with 9 degree temps and 20 mph north winds, including a "wintery mix" of freezing rain and a dusting of snow.
- Cooking boneless shoulders, which I've never done in my life
I washed the butts and used butchers twine to tie them up. I rubbed them (heavily) and had them in the cooker at 3:30pm on Thursday, to be safe. The Auber seemed to be working well. I didn't auto tune it but it was holding temps easily in the +/- 5 degrees. I set it at 225 and had the probe at the rack that both butts were loaded on. I did have a small pan of liquid below it.
Everything was moving along smoothly but by 11pm I noticed the internal temps of the butts was higher than I expected. They were getting done much fast than I anticipated. At 12:30am they were at 150 Internally. I backed the auber down to 210 degrees and let it chug through the cold wintery night.
I woke up at 6:30, checked on things, and found the internal temp of the Butts was only 156 degrees. Holy Stalls! This was the problem I had with the stock controller. I just couldn't power through the stalls when averaging 210. I could but it took forever. I kicked the auber up to 250, which it handled without any issue. At 10am I kicked it up to 275, again with no issues. Finally, by 10:30 both butts had hit 198 IT and I removed them and wrapped them. I had the beans warming in the oven during that time. Once the butts were removed, I dropped a couple of very small apple chunks in the wood box and let the beans go for 1 hour at 275 degrees. I plan to remove them in about 20 minutes and head to the office with my feast.
I still have to learn the "habits" of the Auber, but I'm impressed. I made a mistake dropping it down to 210 degrees over night and it would have cost me dearly if I wouldn't have had the auber to push this cook along this morning.
I've said many times the swings don't bother me at all. I just needed higher temps and the flexibility to run as high as 250 degrees. Something I did when I cooked on my Klose. When I needed higher temps to push the cook, I built a hotter fire. Now I have that flexibility with my SI #3.
I will let you know how the food came out. But as for the cook and the Auber, I'm really liking this thing. More to come.
