Trial Smoke on weber kettle


 
John Ford

John Ford

TVWBB Pro
Question , can I make a kettle into an overnite set & forget smoker
Set up for a long cook, 130-140 briquittes (7-8 ) lbs with pecan chunks.
I think it'll burn 8-10 hours with this load & I could have added 3-4 more lbs.
Maze set up, & butt on.
Using me I-grill to monitor, haven't used in a while & batteries dead but found some.
Maze with pecan chunks

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Charcoal (140) briquittes and fire started one end



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Heat shield & grate
6-7 lb butt on

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Butt after 9 hours

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I know you can smoke on a kettle but my experience was definitely not set it and forget it. I wish you luck... you have an interesting set up and may be onto something.
 
I might even adapt this to my WSM ...thank you for counting the briquettes. That kind of specific data is very helpful.

that pork looks great , BTW.
 
Very similar to the "snake method" for smoking on a kettle. The snake works quite well, and uses very little charcoal, but I prefer the WSM. If I'm only doing a rack of ribs, I'll use the kettle.
 
Chad Bman said:
Very similar to the "snake method" for smoking on a kettle. The snake works quite well, and uses very little charcoal, but I prefer the WSM. If I'm only doing a rack of ribs, I'll use the kettle.
Click to expand...
The major difference is the 20 in heat shield allows almost the whole grate to be used to cook a lot

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John --- I didn't catch the heat shield under the cooking grate in the original post. I'm guessing I'm not alone in that fact. Thanks for bringing it to my (our) attention.
 
I would have never thought of that! Great idea! How did the pizza pan handle all the drippings from the butt?
 
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With a 20" pizza pan, does it just rest on the inside edge of the kettle? If so, how does the smoke get to the meat?
 
The best overnighter method I have found is the snake method and it is a true set and forget.I have had a 100 % success many times.
 
Mike WSM said:
With a 20" pizza pan, does it just rest on the inside edge of the kettle? If so, how does the smoke get to the meat?
Click to expand...

Looks like the pizza pan rests on the firebricks. Just went out (in the rain) to confirm and there's about a half inch between the top of an edge-on firebrick and the bottom of the cooking grate on a 22" kettle. All the years I've been using firebricks and that never occurred to me.

Even better, with a bit of careful arranging one could probably have the snake start in the middle of the coal grate and use the Performer's gas assist to start it without having to move anything afterwards. Excellent !!

John, I didn't recognize the cooking grate you're using -- seems to have a narrow ring around the outside with a large drop-in in the center, both cast iron. Any chance we could bug you for info on that as well ?
 
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