skeeter wrote:
All,
Any good advice on how to smoke in frigid weather?
The cold has been in the low teens near chicago and I'd like some
advice on how to handle this to get smoking go "normal". I know that
the
ambient temperature plays a lot in getting good smoke and appropriate
heat,
and the last thing I want to do is re-freeze a piece of meat I want
smoked.

Thanks in advance! It's funny because this time 2 years ago when I
got my
R2-D2 I was cranking out loins and butts - but now nothing mainly
because
of the cold.

By R2-D2 I'm "assuming" you're talking about a WSM? I
don't know what you consider "frigid" but I just did ribs in
my WSM over the weekend and the high was around 17dF. The
biggest problem is any wind. We had 10-20mph winds Sunday. I
have a plywood wind break rigged up in a v-shape to block my
WSM from the wind.

Had no problem maintaining 250dF for the cook. Ribs came out
great. If you're doing butts/loins etc that are a longer
cook you may end up needing to add some lump depending on
your fire method and initial "load" of lump.

Cold cooks shouldn't be a problem if you can block the wind.

--
Steve