Smallish Disaster with my new 22 WSM


 
Jose Suro

Jose Suro

TVWBB All-Star
I did a brisket yesterday and opened all the vents to let the coals finish burning after I was done cooking. Well, about 30-minutes later the sky opened up with a really strong thunderstorm. I figured no problem, the lid is on right?

I'm buying wheels for that thing this week! The water got into the smoker, down on the coals where they blew up like a miniature volcano, coating the whole inside of the smoker with a gazillion little black coal particles. What a mess!! and all the ash and stuff on the bottom mixed in with about 2-inches of water and made a slush.

This morning I just spent over an hour cleaning everything up. That stuff got on everything, the grates too. Glad it didn't happen while I had food in it!

I'm getting some wheels so I can move this thing around, just in case.

Best,

Jose
 
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Jose Suro said:
I did a brisket yesterday and opened all the vents to let the coals finish burning after I was done cooking. Well, about 30-minutes later the sky opened up with a really strong thunderstorm. I figured no problem, the lid is on right?

I'm buying wheels for that thing this week! The water got into the smoker, down on the coals where they blew up like a miniature volcano, coating the whole inside of the smoker with a gazillion little black coal particles. What a mess!! and all the ash and stuff on the bottom mixed in with about 2-inches of water and made a slush.

This morning I just spent over an hour cleaning everything up. That stuff got on everything, the grates too. Glad it didn't happen while I had food in it!

I'm getting some wheels so I can move this thing around, just in case.

Best,

Jose
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We almost had a similar disaster yesterday. I was tempting fate by loading up the WSM with chicken under very threatening skies, but the forecast called for clearing soon. With only about a half hour left, the rain hit hard. Thankfully, my 8-year-old saved the day by reminding me that we had an old beach umbrella and stand. It's not a waterproof umbrella, but was enough to keep the water out of the cooker. It was also the ammunition I needed in my "I really need a grillzebo" argument, er, discussion with the wife.
 
After I'm done with a cook, I close all the vents to put the coals out. Any that are left, I reuse in the next cook.
 
Wow....good thing everything is safe. I've never had such an experience but I do shut down all of the vents after a cook and have never cooked in a huge rain.
 
ChadVKealey said:
We almost had a similar disaster yesterday. I was tempting fate by loading up the WSM with chicken under very threatening skies, but the forecast called for clearing soon. With only about a half hour left, the rain hit hard. Thankfully, my 8-year-old saved the day by reminding me that we had an old beach umbrella and stand. It's not a waterproof umbrella, but was enough to keep the water out of the cooker. It was also the ammunition I needed in my "I really need a grillzebo" argument, er, discussion with the wife.
Click to expand...

Wait??! A Grillzebo? Why don't I know about this and where can I get details? Oh wow! I need one! I don't even know what it is really (other than the obvious a gazebo for a grill), but I need one.
 
Bob Mann said:
After I'm done with a cook, I close all the vents to put the coals out. Any that are left, I reuse in the next cook.
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Same here. Not only does closing all the vents let you reuse unburned minion coals but I've found it usually makes the WSM cool enough to to safely move out of the elements by hand within 2 hours.
 
ttabor said:
Wait??! A Grillzebo? Why don't I know about this and where can I get details? Oh wow! I need one! I don't even know what it is really (other than the obvious a gazebo for a grill), but I need one.
Click to expand...

Well, right now we have a decrepit playground/swingset in the yard that has concrete footings. In the Fall, we're tearing down the swingset, but digging up the footings is going to require heavy equipment, so I'm lobbying to just reuse them to support a small deck (I figure 8x8 is plenty big for what I have) with some kind of roof (so that rain won't put a damper on things, literally). The deck is the easy part, and I might bump it up to 10x10 so that until I have the time and finances to do the roof right, we can just throw a pop-up canopy on it in bad (or potentially bad) weather.
 
Jose as we all know living in Florida summertime afternoon thunderstorms are a way of life. As much as this may look a bit silly this is my emergency thunderstorm unbrella, it has gotten me through many cooks that would have otherwise been a washout.


Dave
 
That's a brilliant idea, Dave. Where'd you source the umbrella? Also how far away from your screens do you keep the WSM when smoking on your patio or screen room? It's hard to tell from that shot.
 
T MacGreggor said:
That's a brilliant idea, Dave. Where'd you source the umbrella? Also how far away from your screens do you keep the WSM when smoking on your patio or screen room? It's hard to tell from that shot.
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The umbrella was left in the garage when I bought the house, but it has a "C" clamp on the handle to attach to the back of your beach chair, easy on easy off for those one hour storms. The smoker is only about a foot away from the screen as they are aluminum not fiberglass, no worries about the heat
 
Thanks, Dave. Now that you mentioned the umbrella's C-clamp I think I've seen those at Wal-mart or Target in the past.
 
Dave S said:
Jose as we all know living in Florida summertime afternoon thunderstorms are a way of life. As much as this may look a bit silly this is my emergency thunderstorm unbrella, it has gotten me through many cooks that would have otherwise been a washout.


Dave
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Cool setup Dave! I have one of those for my view camera rig. I just went out and got the wheels Tuesday when I went to Lowe's to get the Labor Day deal on the KBB charcoal. I have a pretty good size roofed area within the pool cage. I can wheel it in there if, not if, when it gets nasty :).

Best,

Jose
 
James Lake said:
Wow....good thing everything is safe. I've never had such an experience but I do shut down all of the vents after a cook and have never cooked in a huge rain.
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Thanks! It could have been a lot worse. That because luckily I didn't have the food nor a lot of lit coals left in it so it was more of a "swooosh" sound but exactly how a volcano works when you add water to it. The WSM will not stand to a Florida thunderstorm when the cover is not on it. A lot of water got in the thing.
 
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