i had my first massive run-in with the ecoque this past weekend... it wasn't, per say, the ecoque's fault... but...
brisket- a 14# packer, trimmed and purty... wood fire to temperature, flopped that bad bear in the cooker... I FOUGHT with that thing to maintain a temperature below 350*... for 18 hours that thing smoked... the internal temperature never exceeded 170*, which was me thinking it was just in the mother of all stalls.... but it wasn't.... the cooker was never over 190*... at 18 hours i pulled the thing with an internal temperature of 170*, and it was well blackened with the smoke...
the temperature gauge for the cooker is a digital one- and it was just shy of 200* off, reading the cookers temp @ 350~370, when it was actually in the neighborhood of 190*... I found this out at the end when i opened the door and shot it with a IR temp gun on a non-reflective surface in there..... I was not a happy camper...
punch line: the brisket isn't bad at all- it's not what i would usually call 'brisket', as it was more akin to 'roast' in the end, with fat flopping about (never rendered/reduced).... so... i made a bunch of sammy's and went on about my business, and ordered a better quality temperature gauge... now I have them in triplicate... that ain't ever happening to me again, y'all.