Pics of WSM Piedmont Double Water Pan Mod and Detailed How to Instructions.


 
My Brinkmann is a horizontal offset. Model is Cimmaron, it's 1/4" steel, very heavy. Lke it because it can burn a lot of wood as fuel. Also was a Xmas gift from my dad. My first pit.
Bought the WSM at a garage sale for $10. If I had to choose between the two, I would choose the WSM. Takes a lot less baby sitting (I'm married w/ kids, so that is actually a mixed blessing), about the same capacity.
Once I get all my mods done on the Brinkman, I may sing a different tune.
 
Thats great that you got one for $10...I got mine as a x-mas gift last yr. I was thinking about adding to my arsenalt of equiptment, but I think a kettle is gonne be my next one.
 
Originally posted by Benjamin:
That, im not sure of.
I have a questions for wizards and members....how long (or how many posts) till I switch from a newbie to a member??? I showed up for rush week, but noone else was there....
Click to expand...

Benjamin, here you go.

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Cesar,
It's a sad day for me. I sold my big Oklahoma Joe trailer offset pit this morning. It was a great pit. When my wife wanted a second child I told her she could have one if she bought me that pit. sniff...
Anyway, in the big offset, we used a water pan sometimes for overnight cooks at contests. I'd put the briskets over the water to try to keep the bark a little softer and the meat a little juicier. They judge on tenderness at contests.
For home cooking I don't bother with water because the difference is pretty suttle. I kinda like a bit of crunch on ribs so I don't use water during a rib cook at contests.
The rib experiment is underway. Two pits, one dry, one with water.
 
Dave B,

Why did you have to sell the pit? Just not enough time? Could you post some pics. I really appreciate you taking the time to do the test. We really owe you one.

Erik G,

Is anyone a 5-Star Olympian yet? I know I've seen a Platinum member before. It would be cool if they gave a dream grill once a person reached 5-Star Olympian. Just think how many people they would have helped out. I've only got 49,957 posts to go!

Just dreaming
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BBQ is Life.
 
The pit had to go to pay off credit cards. I had too much fun over the last two years. I've been using bullets at contests lately anyway.
Strange thin was, I bought the big pit so I didn't have to clean up 21 separate pieces of bullets after each contest. I just ran it through the carwash. Now I'm getting too old to stay up all night and feed the big beast.

Experiment on ribs....
Two bullets at 260 grate level. Two slabs of spares. I cut the spares in fourths and switched two rib sections to even things up.
Water in one pan and three laywers of foil with space between each in the other pan. After five hours or so, I checked the wet ribs for doneness and they were acceptable so I took all the ribs off. The wet ribs lost 17.45 oz of moisture and fat, the dry ribs lost 15.85 0z.
Just the opposite of what I expected. Once I started eating I found out why. The ribs on the dry smoker were not done. They needed to go at least another hour. So the water in the pit sped up the cook by at least an hour. The color was the same between the ribs but the dry ribs were more appealing to look at. The bark had a smoother, sandpaper like appearance. Looks like another experiment is in order where I take the dry ribs to doneness. Oh well, good eating anyway.
 
Dave,

Thanks for taking the time to do the experiment. The things we do in the name of BBQ. It's strange that the water pan ribs finished first. That's very interesting.

After you took the dry ribs to finish how did they taste compared to the water in the pan ribs.
 
Well, last night I got my brinkman pans in the mail. Bolted em together and went to fit them up to the weber and the pans were aout an inch smaller than the wsm water pan. I made a quick decision and bent the tabs i a little bit so I could still use the mod. I stopped at the hardware store and got longer bolts for the bottom cooking rack. I hope disaster averted....we will see.
 
Hummm ... did you get the Brinkman charcoal pan or their waterpan ? The charcoal pan is the one you want and it really fits on the tabs in my WSM more securely than the standard Weber pan ?

Paul
 
ah, I think I got the water pan which is 13 1/2 inches across...bumma...
Think there will be any problems? It sits nice on the tabs now that I bent em in a bit.
 
yeah, thats what I was thinking. I wasnt sure that the difference in size of the gaps around the pan would have any effect.

You know whats funny. I printed out the step by step directions from the top of this post. Right when your have the whole thing assembled, it says that if you have made it this far you should give yourself a pat on the back..so I do as im told and patted...as I was walking to size up the contraption....sorta funny...
 
Jonny,
They tasted the same. I didn't put the dry ribs back on. It was time to eat...
It makes sense to me that the wet cook was faster. Moist environment means more efficient heat transfer. I wouldn't trust in one experiment though. I need to repeat the same experiment a few times to see if the results are consistant. It sounds like something worth trying again. Maybe this weekend.
db
 
Thanks for follow up. You're definitely dedicated to perfecting BBQ nirvana. I might try two separate batches the next time I do ribs.

Have a great New Years!
 
Well, I smoked my butts and ribs this weekend with complete success. It was the first cook with the piedmont water pan mod and it worked perfect. I put the butts on at midnight, dome temp around 250. I watched it for about 3 hrs to balance off the temp around 240 then went to sleep. 6 hrs later when I woke up, the temp on the top was 230. The spares went on about 1 p.m.. Butts off at 4 p.m.and spares off at 7 p.m.. Complete success!!! I took pictures of everything and plan on posting em once I get them off my camera.
Thank you everyone who gave me tips before this cook. I swear with this forum, every smoke gets better and better!!!
 
I have a few cooks under my belt now using my piedmont pan. All I can say is I love it. No matter what I am cooking or what method I use to start the fire. It seems that I don't cook just one butt anymore or 3 slabs of ribs. If I'm cookin, I'm cookin. Several butts or many ribs whatever.

In the past when I had a load of meat on lets say 2 butts over a brisket. I would put on 15 or 20 lit on a minion startup and would wait usually well over 2 hours before I was able to shut down the vents for the long haul. I have had many burns where it was still at 200 2 hours in. I am not complaining but throwing the meat on at midnight and having to wait 2 or more hours before you can set the vents was just a bit of a pain on the sleep side of things. Now I have the piedmont setup things are a lot different. The ramp up time is a lot shorter. I did a chuck roll last weekend and I had her up to around 250 in about 90 minutes. To me the end result tasted the same.

I find that the fuel goes further and I shut down the vents more once I reach the target temp. It is also a lot easier to bring the temps up if necessecary. Another example. On occasion I take the wsm to work to make lunch for the guys. Every time I have done this I figure out the amount of time the entree takes to cook and start about a half hour earlier for a buffer. Everytime I end up late for one reason or another. I think a lot has to do with the grates being full. Anyhow I got to where I would only fill the water pan half full or less and still have problems with my timing. Well a couple of weeks ago I put the piedmont into action. When I decided to bump the temp feeling like I was falling behind I just opened the vents and up the temp went. For me it just seemed like it took forever to start the climb when I had any water. I remember doing a cook once with 2 racks of western ribs and an hour left til serving time and a long way to go. I emptied the water pan to get things finished. That may not seem like a big deal until you factor in the only thing I took with me to work was the wsm, fuel, meat and a thermometer.

I just wanted to say my experiences with this mod has been great. I am planning on doing this mod to my magnum and hope I will have the same results. Since I have quite a bit of room in the magnum I am thinking about using 3 pans instead of 2. Maybe maybe not. The pans for the magnum are $15 each.
 
Ces,

You will not have any trouble maintaining low or higher temps. I run my setup full open on top and about 1/8 inch open on the bottoms and you should keep in the 220-235 range. If you want higher 1/4 to 1/2. I first run with the piedmond was perfect. I did not experience hardly any fluctuations and it even a windy day.

I would highly recommend the setup.

Jon
 
Jeff,

Thanks for the great feedback. I thought of trying a 3 pan Piedmont with less space between the pans but it probably would be over kill.
 
Awsome I thought it was only for higher temps. Great Im ordering a pan asap. Spilled nasty greasey water on my pants and shoes this past Saturday so this would be great. Thanks for your help.
 
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