Using the WSM with wood coals


 
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Barry McCorkle

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I cooked spare ribs this weekend on my WSM with somewhat of a twist and the results were great! I have been toying with the idea of using wood coals instead of charcoal lately and no water pan to recreate authentic(?) barbecue. I had always put it off since it seemed like a lot of work to keep two fires going, but I can now say that it was well worth the effort.

The cooker maintained a steady 225 - 230 for the first 3 hours and then I kept it at 250 - 275 for the last 3 hours. Used the BRITU recipe on 2 slabs of spares that I trimmed to a ST. Louis cut. Wished I would have spent more time trimming fat and some other unwantables, but that is another story. As mentioned above I did not use the water pan and I only put in white oak coals three or four times during the entire session to keep temps where I wanted them. Also, I did not mop or baste the ribs at anytime during the session.

End result? The ribs were only slightly dry, but they were tender and had the best taste of any ribs that I have cooked to date. They came off the bone cleanly but with a very slight tug, not mushy. I really think cooking over wood coals is the way to go.

Next weekend, I am going to cook some Boston Butt in the same way.
 
How did you burn down your oak? In a metal barrel of some sort? How much oak did it take for the entire cooking session? I assume no smoke wood, just the oak coals.

Regards,
Chris
 
First I started a 1/3 chimney of Kingsford. Once it was fully flaming, I poured a some of the briquettes into an old metal wheel barrow and put 3 small logs of oak on it. I then poured the remaining lit briquettes into the charcoal chamber and put some very small oak logs, approximately 2 inch diameter, on top of the charcoal. I say oak logs, but it was more like small branches that were cut to 8 - 10 inch lengths. I didn't fill the chamber up too much since my unit tends to run hot.

Waited till it all was burned to coals and then put the ribs on the top rack, closed all bottom vents and put the lid on. I did not use the water pan since I wanted the effect of the fat dripping on the coals.

Initial temperature was 325 and it went down to 240 fairly quickly and within an hour it was at 225 - 230. It really did not take much wood or a lot of effort to keep the temps like I described earlier. I only added 1 "fireplace shovel" load of coal from the wheelbarrow during the first 3 hours. At some time during the first 3 hours, I did open the bottom vents. During the last 3 hours of the session, I added 2 more shovel fulls of coals. I did not keep a log for this cooking session, so I cannot say for sure how much wood that I used, but it did not seem to be very much.

Next Saturday I will be cooking a Boston Butt in the same way so I will try to keep a more detailed log of the vents, temps and wood usage. No smoke wood was added. Only oak and apple wood that had been burned down to coals was used. It seemed that the last half of the cooking session had a fair amount of light white smoke constantly emanating out of the cooker.


SC Que
 
SC Que
Authentic Q, you can't use a WSM, must be a whole in the ground or a rock pit.
biggrin.gif

With butt you may want to use a dry waterpan
just to keep the grease fire down. The main difference in taste is less smoke and the flavor of the grease vaporizing as it hits the coals.
Good luck, let us know how it goes.
Jim
 
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