hello, second time, and a few questions

hello again

we had another go with the amigo yesterday, and although it was better, i'm still not 100% sure that we're doing it correctly.

i bought a weber chimney starter, and what a huge difference it's made.

we lit the starter with 2.5kg of briquettes, and transferred the coals to the smoker when they were well alight and white on the top.

i put approx 1.5 litres of boiling water into the bowl, and set a chicken on the top rack.

for approx 1 hour the temp didn't get above 150f, but when the water had evaporated the temp went up to 220f and held well.

however, the fat from the chicken was dripping into an empty bowl and burning, so i added just a little water to cover the bottom of the bowl, and the temp dropped to 180f until the water had gone, then went back to 220f.

this happened everytime we added some water. in the end we left out the water and the temp hald until the chicken was cooked.

but, the water bowl wasn't the easiest thing to wash when we had finished, as it was baked with chicken fat.

any tips on how to keep the temp up as well as having water in the bowl ?

arthur

however, the amigo cooked the chicken to perfection, lovely and moist with just a hint of jack daniels ( and we didn't have to finish it in the oven )

Have you calibrated your lid thermometer?

Like I said when I replied to your first topic the lid thermometer can be out. Given that you said your water evaporated in about an hour it would be
Logical to assume your temp is higher than 150 as 150 is too low to evaporate water so quick. My cooker goes through about a litre of water per hour when running between 225 and 250.

Seriously dude calibrate your lid thermometer or buy a maverick. There are other discussions on here that explain calibrating, it's a diddle

Steve