I recently bought a Pit Boss vertical pellet smoker. I like how it cooks, and have been fairly successful with lamb and beef, but not for pork. I use the trusty 3-2-1 method at 225 degrees F to cook St. Louis style ribs and after 6 hours I expect them to be around 195 degrees, but they never are. I’m lucky if they are at 170 degrees. (BTW, this is not a particularly large rack of ribs since I normally cut the 3 lb. rack I buy at the store in half as there is only two of us.)
I live in NW Montana at about 4,000 feet, and from googling I’ve learned that cooking at higher altitude means I have to add more time to the cook. This was news to me. So how much time do I have to add? An extra hour or two? Should I do a 4-2-1 for my ribs next time or something different? I can’t find any specific information for my elevation as far as smoking time adjustment goes. Any help here would be appreciated.
For smoking meat I don’t see how altitude would make a difference. The ‘longer cooking time’ thing is due to water boiling at a lower temperature with altitude. At 4,000 feet, for example, it boils at 204F instead of 212 as at sea level. A pot of spaghetti will take longer to get tender because to slightly cooler water will not penetrate the pasta as fast.
But you’re not boiling water in the smoker. You’re probably not even getting as high as boiling – when set on smoke my pellet smoker is 180-200 degrees which is why a big chunk of brisket takes hours to get to an internal temperature of 195.
On the same site above another page talks about the effect of altitude on different cooking methods. It doesn’t mention smoking but it does talk about grilling.
Because the reduced atmospheric pressure of high altitudes affects the boiling point of water, it’s moist-heat cooking techniques that are affected the most. Dry-heat cooking techniques like roasting or grilling are not affected in the same way because high altitudes don’t alter the way air is heated. So a roasted chicken recipe shouldn’t require any adjustment at higher elevations.
On the other hand, since water evaporates more quickly at high altitudes, meat cooked on the grill tends to dry out more quickly than when cooked at sea level. Note that the temperature isn’t affected, just the moisture content of the food. So a grilled steak might be drier at high altitude than at sea level — even if it’s not overcooked temperature-wise.
There’s not much you can do about that, other than to make sure that you give grilled and roasted meat a chance to rest so the juices redistribute before you cut into it.
Like with all learning about barbecue, you can do a bunch of research, but there’s generally a bit of trial and error involved as you learn how to cook using your tools, your coals, your environment. It looks like you were still in the “stall” at 170. What I personally would do is cook it at 250. I prefer my barbecue cooked at higher temps, and I generally do it at 275. So here’s the possibilities:
Cook it longer until it’s done. Barbecue doesn’t really work on your schedule. It is done when the meat says its done. How long? At 170, you got at least an hour to go I would think.
3-2-1 involves a foiling step, right? You generally want to wait to wrap until it’s around 150-160, and then when you unwrap, it should be climbing out of the stall zone (like once it hits 175 or so, it should be going up). Two hours wrapped is standard advice (and I personally don’t wrap ribs, but it should speed things up), but you might want to consider a little longer if the temp is still stalled at 170 at the end of the “2” of the “3-2-1”.
Rather than adjust time, adjust heat. Do 3-2-1 at 250 and see if you have better results. Like I said, I don’t go by exact times, but by how the meat looks and feels. I prefer higher heat because I feel it gives me slightly better bark and is slightly juicier, or at least it seems to me. Well, honestly, I guess it’s as much because it’s a little bit faster. Point is, don’t be afraid of smoking at a higher temp.
I’m not sure how altitude affects smoking time, so I can’t speak to that, but 225 does seem a bit low to me. I agree with pulykamell; 250-275 is a good range. I usually do about 275 as well, and 3-2-1 for ribs at those temps would leave me with rib jerky.
I once tried cooking ribs that were frozen solid to start (a combination of bad planning ahead and curiosity), and using a shortened 3-2-1 method (1.75-1.5-.75-ish) it took about 4 hours to get them from frozen to falling-off-the-bone tender at around 275 (I know there is a school of thought that rib meat should stick to the bone and have some ‘bite’, but I like them falling off the bone; makes for easy rib meat sandwiches next day ).
The Pit Boss is a cool looking smoker. I would be checking the smoker thermometer for accuracy. From the manual:
Do you have the meat probes? Maybe better to monitor those than the smoker temperature, but you have to know that the smoker is in the ball park for the temperature.
As far as the 3-2-1 smoker temp goes, many of the recipes I’ve seen say you should cook “low and slow” anywhere from 200 to 250 degrees, so I picked 225 (actually it was 230) since it was near the middle of that range. 275 seems a bit high to me for some reason, although it will certainly make things cook faster.
So where did I get the idea that altitude may have something to do with smoker temp? From this article…
“Cooking meat and poultry at high altitudes may require adjustments in both time and moisture. This is especially true for meat cooked by simmering or braising. Depending on the density and size of the pieces, meats and poultry cooked by moist heat may take up to one-fourth more cooking time when cooked at 5,000 feet.” Emphasis mine.
And this one… “He said the meat definitely cooks slower at higher elevations.“ As altitude increases and atmospheric pressure decreases, the boiling point of …”
Next time I will give myself more time for the cook at a temp of 250 and if it gets done early that’s fine. I will also use probes for both the smoker and the meat, although using a probe on ribs can sometimes be tricky. I always use a probe for the smoker temp to verify it’s where the smoker is telling me it is.
Simmering or braising involve cooking in liquid, where altitude will impact the temperature of boiling water. Dry smoking will be minimally impacted by elevation.
This. @dolphinboy, get rid of the water and start dry smoking. You don’t need it. You can make foil boats for pieces that can get dried out, ‘mop’ the meat by spraying water on it from time to time, lard the meat so it will stay moist, stack rib sections and move the racks from the bottom to the top periodically. Personally I think the smoke doesn’t come out well with a lot of moisture. I assume you can toss some real wood in to burn for the smoke. It really needs a lot at the beginning and again at the end for the flavor.
But I go on too long. The best advice is probably just do what makes you happy when you smoke meat.
Yeah, I don’t find liquid helps except as a heat sink to stabilize the temps. I use sand these days in my water pan to good results. Similarly, I’ve done perfectly good pulled pork (though not smoked) in the oven cooked on the rack, no Dutch oven, no liquid. But, like you say, everyone has their own way and it’s all good if it yields a product you like.
I tried smoking my first brisket last weekend. It wasn’t a full brisket, just 5 lbs. of the flat. I smoked it at about 250 until the internal temperature read 165. At that point I wrapped it in butcher paper and raised the temperature up to 275. I kept it on until the internal temperature was 200 and then pulled it and let it rest. Is there anything wrong with this process?
The brisket ended up a little drier than I would have liked. Now, while I did start the smoke with some liquid in the drip pan, I did not add any when I pulled the brisket and added more wood. The bark was okay, not great and the smoke ring was right at the surface of the brisket.
Which variables should I change? I would assume that I need less time than I took, but that would also mean a lower internal temp. I am not sure what to do next time.
It sounds like you did everything right. Liquid in the drip pan is just to create a heat sink to regulate the smoker temp; contrary to popular belief, the steam adds nothing to the moisture of the meat; the moistness or lack thereof is more about how much fat remains. I used to get all fancy with the water in the pan, adding a gallon of apple juice or a bottle of wine to ‘flavor’ the meat. Didn’t make a darn bit of difference. Like @pulykamell, I’ve used sand for a heat sink for years and it doesn’t negatively affect the final result at all. And makes for much easier cleanup.
I think it’s just that 5lb. flats of brisket are notoriously finicky to cook just right; nothing so much that you did wrong-- they can go from ‘too tough due to improperly rendered collagen’ to ‘dried out jerky’ in a short window of time.
Maybe try a full brisket next time? I post this link of mine from last year every time somebody mentions brisket in a thread, so I hope I’m not getting obnoxious with this, but this experiment I tried cooking a full flat + point brisket on a kettle-style grill turned out so well, I gotta evangelize a bit. I need to try this again soon:
Thanks for the response. Right now I do have another small flat in the freezer so I will have to do it at least once more. I’ll still smoke it at 250 but shoot for a slightly lower final temperature.
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