Tony_R Detroit
New member
After watching Jeremy Yoder (Mad Scientist BBQ on youtube) run this test on three offsets I came to this board to see if anyone had done this test on a WSM. I didn't find a thread on it - sorry if I missed it and this is old news. I wanted to see the results of this test to help answer the question on fat cap up or down, if there's a difference, I want to put the fat cap towards the convective heat transfer (protect the meat, render the fat). My hypothesis going in was that the air flow through a WSM is nowhere near an offset so it wouldn't make a difference.
The setup: WSM 22", empty water pan, top grate only. Temperature ~275 as measured by Smoke X4 at grate, and Tel-Tru in place of stock gauge. Once temps were stable I placed 5 biscuits at varying positions (center, edge, two different distances between edge and center).
Results: Overall it is clear the convective heat comes from the bottom but the impact is most noticeable at the outer 6" of the grate (makes sense as that is where the heat comes around the water pan. The inner ~10" circle of the grate the difference is less but still clearly coming from the bottom.
My takeaways:
1. If you want to put the fat cap towards the heat then put the fat cap down.
2. The outer 6" ring of the grate is the hot spot and it's significant. This is more concerning when cooking a big brisket knowing the thinnest part of the flat is in this zone. I would plan to either not trim the fat cap on this section of the flat, or at some point in the cook place tin foil under this part of the brisket. One thing I will try going forward is to separate the point from the flat to position each more ideally in the cooker. I've read numerous posts of people saying not to do this mentioning "losing moisture" or something like that but I doubt that is true - there's a significant vein of fat separating the two muscles such that you should be able to keep a renderable amount of fat on both sections - let me know your thoughts if you've tried this.
Let me know your results if you've tried this test before - Thanks all!
The setup: WSM 22", empty water pan, top grate only. Temperature ~275 as measured by Smoke X4 at grate, and Tel-Tru in place of stock gauge. Once temps were stable I placed 5 biscuits at varying positions (center, edge, two different distances between edge and center).
Results: Overall it is clear the convective heat comes from the bottom but the impact is most noticeable at the outer 6" of the grate (makes sense as that is where the heat comes around the water pan. The inner ~10" circle of the grate the difference is less but still clearly coming from the bottom.
My takeaways:
1. If you want to put the fat cap towards the heat then put the fat cap down.
2. The outer 6" ring of the grate is the hot spot and it's significant. This is more concerning when cooking a big brisket knowing the thinnest part of the flat is in this zone. I would plan to either not trim the fat cap on this section of the flat, or at some point in the cook place tin foil under this part of the brisket. One thing I will try going forward is to separate the point from the flat to position each more ideally in the cooker. I've read numerous posts of people saying not to do this mentioning "losing moisture" or something like that but I doubt that is true - there's a significant vein of fat separating the two muscles such that you should be able to keep a renderable amount of fat on both sections - let me know your thoughts if you've tried this.
Let me know your results if you've tried this test before - Thanks all!
