?? about smoker design and cook time

[cmwr]

I have always used a UDS smoker. Recently I built a half UDS. I call it the Minion UDS. Because it is so short I cannot put meat directly over the coals so I took a weber rack and cut it in half. I slide my basket over to the opposite side so the meat is on the other half of the drum. It works and it works well although before today I have only smoked birds and smaller stuff. Today I am doing my largest smoking job in years in preparation for my sons graduation party tomorrow. I have 3, 8 lb pork shoulders on my standard UDS and 2 in my Minion. I am noticing that while running similar temps the meat in the full size is cooking noticeably faster. Those shoulders already have bark peeling away and internal temps of around 145. In the Minion I have internal temps around 117-120 and a nice bark starting and it is just starting to split open. I was wondering if it is common to have indirect smokers take longer to cook than direct smokers? It seems like a stupid question but the Minion is such a small area that I would think the ambient internal heat would still cook just as fast....

 

[pjtexas1]

i have found direct heat to be faster even at the same temp.

 

[cmwr]

i have found direct heat to be faster even at the same temp.

Thats kind of what my findings are as well but I just wanted some input from others to make sure that everything was going okay.

 

[BillATL]

With direct you're getting radiant heating from the fire as well as the convection from the surrounding air so you're applying more energy to the food and it cooks faster

 

[DaveAlvarado]

Yeah I expect direct to be faster as well.