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Using lump and all the vents wide open my 18" will hit 400°F

I'm with Chuck and Bob. I don't see any real reason to use sand. More mass for more stable temps? Eh. It'll run stable enough without. It's just BBQ, a little variation in temperature won't hurt anything. Keep it simple!

I used to set up my Big Green Egg the same way, but I had a few issues and now start at the top. If you're cooking without water, and limiting temp by limiting air flow, you don't really have a typical fire with flames, it's more smoldering. The fire spreads by one lit coal directly touching...

What's the outside temp? Is it sitting in direct sunlight? Our summers here in middle GA are HOT, mine will hit 150*F sitting in the sun without a fire in it! Mine cools down pretty slowly, it's better since I added the gasket to the door to seal it up, but it still cools down slower than I...

I'm in line with Len's theory. Too many briquettes lit initially, and then when you assembled the cooker and limited the air in you choked the fire nearly out, producing all that white smoke. Basically you had too much mass hot enough to burn, but not enough oxygen to burn cleanly. Your temp...

Those tiny openings alone are not enough to cause issues. It may take longer to cool down than you expected with the vents closed, but a lot of that could be the door, not those tiny openings. I've also found that when you do shut it down you need to leave it along for a while, even after you...

Gotcha. Yeah, sounds like either bad charcoal or maybe boiling over the water as mentioned before. I was just making sure you weren't using a single wax starter inside the WSM to get the fire going. Let us know once you get it sorted out!

This honestly sounds like a lot of complaining about nothing. That tiny it of 'daylight' will not effect the use of the smoker, you just need to use it and get used to how it runs.

Ah, Are you lighting it with just a wax fire starter in the WSM? If so it'll take a long while for it to get hot. Once the starter goes out you have to wait for the fire to spread to other coals. You need to get some coals lit in a chimney starter, then dump them into the WSM on a pile of...

And how do you know it's going out? Lack of smoke? Temp dropping? How are you measuring thermostat?

I've got some flat stainless steel skewers that solve that problem. But the skewers get HOT, so, you can't touch them, I flip/rotate with tongs. But the meat stays together.

Yeah add the wood before the meat. Keep it simple.

Grilled pineapple, dusted with Dizzy Pig's Pineapple Head, is a crazy good dessert.

Yep. All three Webers I've bought in the last few months (a kettle, an 18" WSM for myself, and another 18" WSM for my dad) all had oil on the charcoal grate. The cooking grates were clean though.

I like mesquite just fine. I like hickory, apple, and cherry best though. I've not cooked tri-tip before...so can't help much there. But one thing that stands out to me in your story is a 300+ degree smoker with a gallon of water in the pan, I'm surprised you were able to get the temp that...

Keep in mind your vent settings may be different. With water you can burn a hotter fire, but the water boiling off will keep the smoker temp low because it takes a lot of energy (heat) to change the water from liquid to gas. That same fire, with no water, is going to make the smoker a lot...

BFletcher - what temp are you usually hitting?

I use my probe exactly as you have pictured. I figure there's not a huge difference in temp at each grate, and being between the two gives you a close-enough temp (a few degrees one way or the other doesn't make any difference), and I imagine the temp across the width of the smoker is fairly...

Sounds like ash build up is your issue. Are you using a water pan? If you are, try a cook without it It eats up a lot of energy (fuel), and without it you'll have a smaller fire to maintain the same temperature, and therefore a longer burn time (and less ash produced each hour) with the same...

I didn't use any sauce, just a dry rub on everything, applied right before I put them on the grill. Two of each: In order as shown on the cutting board, top to bottom: Peach Bourbon (picked up at a local smoked meat joint) Dizzy Pig Raging River Weber's Kickin' Chicken Don't get me wrong...