Darrel Williams
TVWBB Super Fan
I took my WSM 18 camping with a group of 40+ fathers and sons. I have had this for over a month now, and I had used it for some 6 to 8 hour smokes. But this time, I put in 34 lbs worth of 4 pork shoulders which I had brined with a concoction that I just ad-libbed {kosher salt, molasses, white sugar, garlic, pepper and spices}.
The WSM was amazing. The pork cooked for 21 hours from Friday afternoon to just passed Saturday lunch. I used about 20 lbs of charcoal total, but I also had room temp water in the bowl to begin, so that increased my charcoal need.
It stayed in the smoke temperature zone virtually the whole time. When I went to bed on Friday, I added more charcoal and the temp read 240*. It was about 180* when I woke up so I stoked it with some fresh charcoal and wet Apple wood chips, opened the bottom vents up, and got it back to 240 pretty easily. Saturday morning brought a 30 minute period of torrential rain, but it didn't seem to matter to the WSM.
It was quite windy, so I improvised and used a folding table on its side as a makeshift windscreen. I think this worked out pretty well. I'm glad I had the extra table.
The pork itself had a significant bark to it. But under that bark it was an all-tender festival of melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness. I only cooked the meat to about 180*. But I actually had a hard time getting the shoulders out because when I tried to pick them up, they had lost their will to stay intact. They had to be scooped up into their holding pens for their 2 hour cool down. Then I tried to use 2 long BBQ forks to try and pull them, but I soon tired of this and I went all ginsu on them with a cleaver.
The WSM was amazing. The pork cooked for 21 hours from Friday afternoon to just passed Saturday lunch. I used about 20 lbs of charcoal total, but I also had room temp water in the bowl to begin, so that increased my charcoal need.
It stayed in the smoke temperature zone virtually the whole time. When I went to bed on Friday, I added more charcoal and the temp read 240*. It was about 180* when I woke up so I stoked it with some fresh charcoal and wet Apple wood chips, opened the bottom vents up, and got it back to 240 pretty easily. Saturday morning brought a 30 minute period of torrential rain, but it didn't seem to matter to the WSM.
It was quite windy, so I improvised and used a folding table on its side as a makeshift windscreen. I think this worked out pretty well. I'm glad I had the extra table.
The pork itself had a significant bark to it. But under that bark it was an all-tender festival of melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness. I only cooked the meat to about 180*. But I actually had a hard time getting the shoulders out because when I tried to pick them up, they had lost their will to stay intact. They had to be scooped up into their holding pens for their 2 hour cool down. Then I tried to use 2 long BBQ forks to try and pull them, but I soon tired of this and I went all ginsu on them with a cleaver.
