[Crash]

Every time I have cooked on my Excell 20 I have never used a water pan period. On Saturday night I started my grill with about just on layer of the basket with Kingsford and then used some lump that was laying around and then dumped about 30 hot glowing coals over the top and that was still not even close to the top of the basket. Well in about 20 minuets the smoker was in the 300 degree range and climbed all the way to 410. I had all the vents closed and started tapeing of the temp probe holes to get the temp to fall. I learned never to use lump coal again.

All of my experiences w/ lump charcoal is that it cooks much hotter.  Some people swear by lump, but I seem to have a lot of trouble maintaining the lower temp that I want.  I am sure that it is operator error on my part. 

[RangerJurena]

So as 8:00 PM rolled around, I was informed that it was a few hours past dinner time and "I don't care if its raw, pull it off so we can eat."

So I was roughly 11 hours into cooking a 10.5 lb packer prior to trimming.  The temps were right, but the thickest part just was not the "butter" feel I was looking for, so I was going to let it run awhile longer.

Here is the pulled product:



And here is the flat sliced with some point pieces up front:




The brisket came out pretty good all things considered. It was pretty close to being done but not quite tender enough across the flat for competition purposes.  For home eating, it was fine.

I don't think I can give a fair evaluation since the initial load of charcoal was not enough.  From 7:00 AM lighting until pulling at 8:00 PM, I used 9lbs to start.  I added an additional 5-6lbs to get up to temp.  And then I added about 5 more lbs around 1730 to make sure I could finish the cook. So perhaps, loading it with 20lbs to start would have got me through.

I have no idea, based on this cook what would be needed to use the additional stacker.  I'm going to say that this probably takes longer to get to temp and uses more fuel due to the big ass water pan.

I was able to cook this brisket without foil, which is the way I was raised via offset stickburners.  I probably will not use this in Boulder for my brisket or my chicken but will consider using it for my pork( clueless on this product at this point)  and my ribs ( can't seem to not overcook these on the UDS) to get more experience.

I will say that the ability to unlatch and move things is pretty neat.  You can even change the level of your meat without actually moving the product, just changing the stacker position. 

I'll need some more practice with it which is not a bad thing!

[KidCurry]

It does look tasty!

[force]

time for a brisket sandwhich.....