Egg on my face for our smoked 2 Turkey dinner party.

[Quarlow]

For next time why not start well ahead and then FTC till dinner. FTC stands for Foil,Towel, Cooler. Once it is done you wrap it in foil, wrap that with towels and stick them in a cooler to help retain heat. They will stay hot for hours and be just right at dinnertime.

As for keeping the vent wide open for poultry, think about this, Dry air will heat faster and easier than wet air. So the faster you can get the moisture out the faster you can heat the air. And poultry has so much moisture in it that you need to evacute it in order to get it hot inside. Good luck next time.

[OU812]

SDS

I did a post no my smoker a wile back and at the end of the post theres some info on the fans, check this out.

Also on the recipe site theres a post on how the single fan was installed.

You might want to install another heatin element with your new PID thats over at the recipe site also.

Here is the main page of the recipe site, got some good info on that site, recipes too.

[San Diego Smoker]

Gizmo thank you for your feed back and practical suggestions.

I think you are right about the 500W heating element being under powererd for the 2 14lb birds.  I also like your suggestion on starting at high temp until the box recovers.  Also next time I will give the birds a little time to warm up before putting them in the oven.

OU812 - Thank you so much for the link about the heating elements, fans, and bricks.  Big help to this newbie.

It is really great that so many of you smoking pros are willing to help us lowly newbies.

Thanks, :)

[OU812]

Glad I could help, heck we all were newbies at some time or another.