Greetings from Iceland.


 

Hilmir Kolbeins

New member
Hi, I´m a total new guy in this smoking arena. I just bought a Weber Smokey Mountain few days ago. I´ve been watching pitmasters and got blown away, I wanted to make BBQ.

I´ve been cooking for many years and now my way around meat and other stuff needed to make great food.

But I must say my test run on the WSM did not go as planned. I used the minion methood to start the coals, but them in the crate and put the smoker together. Hoever I never got it up to temp. I looked inside and saw that the coals were not turning white. I played around for some hours until I gave up. I managed at one point to get the coals up to heat and put the smoker back together and it held the temp at 250 for about an hour when it went back down.

The weather was windy so I think that might have been a factor. I looked at the coals the next morning to see that most of them were still black.

But even though my first try did not go well, it did not dampen my spirit. Now I´m waiting for a better weather here in Iceland and also I´m looking into the V-burners (propane) to see if that might be a solution here in Iceland.
 
Welcome. I have found the minion method to be virtually a flawless way to cook. Start with vents all open and enough hot coals. My experience is that only wind disrupts a cook-that is handled with a wind block. Good luck. You will find the wsm to be very dependable.
 
Hilmir,

Welcome and good luck on your next cook. Was your charcoal dry? Let us know how the next cook turns out.

Ray
 
Thank you, the coals were dry when I did this.

However it´s my day off, and it´s about 41°, calm weather and the chimney is smoking. I put some coals in the pan and waiting for the coals to get ready. I´m making a small video of it as I go.
 
Well, it´s the same, the temp went up to 200° after I put the wsm together. After 30 min it started to go down again. I´m thinking it could be the coals I´m using. I´m using Weber long lasting coals. I looked into the WSM and the coals that were in the pan are not turning gray. It´s like the minion methood is not working with weber coals.
 
I've never heard of Weber coals, it sounds like you're doing everything right, go pick up a new bag of charcoal.
 
I've used Weber coals, and they work well with the minion method. They are quite small in size with a groove in each one. I do not usually buy them, but that is just because they are very expensive, and not worth the price.

Earlier they sold heatbeads in these bags, but it looks like they use something else now. Look at this danish forum, it seems like others have the same experience as you have:

http://translate.google.com/transla...grillguru.dk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=12406

Translated with google translate, but it is understandable.

500554742_1_big.jpg


Hilmir, you have opened all the vents, on the bottom of the unit as well as the top? And no alu- foil covering a whole grate or something?

And by the way- welcome!
 
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Welcome to the forum. Great to have another country added to our group. You shouldn't have a problem getting up to temps at 41f. Sounds like a air flow problem.
 
I suspected the coals were not good enough, and after reading the Danish forum I seem to be right. I can read danish, we have to learn danish in school here in Iceland as well as English.

I followed everything to the letter, all vents open, no aluminum anywhere. They just died out. I managed to get it up to temp by opening the hatch but as soon as I closed it, the heat just faded away. Gonna try to find Kingsford but since it´s winter here in Iceland it´s gonna be hard as the seasonals are not up yet.

Thank´s for the warm welcome, it´s gonna be fun hanging around here and make some new friends.
 
Thanks for the warm welcome, and thanks for the danish link. I´m convinced that the coals from Weber are no good.

I´m gonna try to find Kingsford, it´s gonna be hard since the seasonal items are not up yet. I have like 4 bags of them in my pop up camper but it´s in storage 2 hours drive away :(
 
Hello Hilmir. Welcome to the forum. Let me ask , did you have water in your water pan?. If so, was it cold to begin with?
The reason I ask is that a lot of times , the water will soak up a lot of the heat from your fire. Read up on the clay saucer mod on the weber bullet website. By the way , what were you cooking? Just curious.
Whatever issues you are having , I'm sure you will find help here. ....and now that I read more of the posts in this thread , I see that you narrowed it down to bad charcoal. Well , when you get some kingsford and try again , you can think about the water pan issue.:D
 
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Hi Hilmir and welcome aboard!

With my WSMs, whether it's briquettes or lump, I follow the same routine.

I fill my charcoal ring to the top with 4 or 5 fist sized chunks of wood mixed in the charcoal.
I light it in 3 places, in between the vents, with a high output propane torch.
I let it go for about 10 or 15 minutes then put the WSM together.
I have all three bottom vents and the top vent fully open.
I bring the cooker slowly up to my cooking temperature, then put the meat on.
I generally then fully close 2 of the bottom vents, and the 3rd one about half way.
I always leave the top vent fully open unless there is a bad over temperature problem.
I do not use water, I use a foiled clay flower pot base in the foiled water pan.

Good luck,

Bob
 
Hilmir, welcome to the site. Spent nearly four years, off and on, flying out of Reykjavik some years ago. Great country! Stay with us and we will make you the king of BBQ in Iceland.
 
Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum. I´m heading out to a cabin near Geysir here in Iceland. The word geyser is actually from Icelandic, Geysir is similar to Old Faithfull in Yellowstone but unfortunately Geysir does not erupt anymore but I´ve seen it and it is a huge eruption. Last time it blew off was when we had a big earthquake in that area.
Here is a video a shot and edited from the Geysir area. The one that´s blowing off is Strokkur, he is much smaller but goes off on the hour.

I got my first Weber (Q120) in 2011 when I was traveling with my wife and two daughters on a road trip in the USA. We drove from Washington State to Oregon (Portland, Cannon Beach) back up to Washington (mount st Helens) over to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, California and back up to Washington. 6000 miles on the odomoeter,should have seen the guys face at HERTZ, lucky I got free mileage.

I bought the Weber in Oregon an stuffed it in the back with the girls :) hey it was like 60% cheaper in Oregon than in Iceland. I store it in my camper and use it during camping, but I got the Weber 300 in my porch. Webers in Iceland are not cheap the Smokey Mountain 18,5 here in Iceland costs 600$. Everything turned upside down after the bank crisis and our currency dropped.
 

 

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