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Sure you have. You can get two slices of cured, smoked pork belly with some eggs and toast at any diner. Pork belly is what bacon is made from.

Nailed it. Try cooking a butt in your oven at 200F until it's done. You'll be waiting about 24 hours for it to finish creeping up. Same butt at 300F is done in like 6 hours because you always have a big temperature difference between the air around the meat and the meat itself.

Yep, it will be. If you don't check the brisket until morning and it's at say 197F internal temp, how do you know if you missed the tenderness window or not? What has worked for me is to switch to hot & fast cooks. Empty water bowl, target 300F-325F. A brisket put on at 8am will be done...

How to not mess up a brisket: Prerequisites: - Pick a temp and stick with it. Doesn't matter what it is, just try to keep it consistent. If you want to cook at 225F for 20 hours, more power to you. If you want to cook at 325F for 6-8 hours, more power to you. Just don't go from 225F to 325F...

I disagree that there's no benefit to low & slow. You definitely end up with incredibly moist meat (and rubber skin) if you cook around 250F. I've done tons of bone-in turkey breasts that way. It's dead simple. Brine the breast if you want (or don't, if it's the standard pre-brined type)...

You absolutely can, your WSM will work just like an ugly drum. I wouldn't use the bottom rack, that's too close to the coals, but I've cooked butts and brisket with no water pan. The taste is a little different since all that grease is getting burned up in the fire. It's not bad, just different.

Looks great! Tip for quick gunking--get some of the cheapest bacon and chicken parts you can find. I got a big pack of thick-cut bacon and a big pack of chicken thighs from Costco. Remove your water bowl, load up some charcoal, and add about 3-4 times as much smoke wood as you'd usually use...

The center of the "back" (opposite the handle on the side of the lid) is directly below the vent, at least on a 22". It's really easy to eyeball, or you could drop a plumb line if you wanted to get really picky about it. When I did mine I made sure the lid handle was centered above the door...

So you have a 22" top and bottom and two 22" middles? Sounds like it's time for a monster smoker. :D Remove all grates, hang a pig in there.

You should be fine then. No problems holding 250 with water (assuming it's not freezing where you're at), and that timeframe seems reasonable to not have to fill the pan back up. I personally don't think you need to spritz at all, but the added humidity will definitely help if you prefer the...

I had the exact same experience the one time I used blue in my WSM. Never again.

What are you cooking, and what temp are you targeting? With water in the smoker, it's harder to hit high temps, and you'll use more fuel at anything over 212F because some of the heat energy goes to boiling the water.

Pork butts take a looong time to cook, baby backs are fast. Two butts will cook in about 10 hours at a steady 250F. Baby backs will cook in about 4 hours at 275F, maybe longer at 250F, assuming you wrap for part of the cook. The butts can be held for as long as it takes the ribs to cook. So...

Or you could just use lump, which is nothing but wood that has been burned down to coals.

A WSM isn't really made to be a wood-only cooker. It's designed to severely restrict airflow to keep temps down and cook for a really long time on a load of charcoal. Aaron Franklin cooks on offset smokers also known as "stick burners" that are designed to burn log splits. On those you...

Dangit, this was the first and only April Fool's joke to get me!

How are you measuring your temperatures? If it's the dome thermometer, get yourself a Maverick or something to let you measure at the cooking grate, making sure you leave a couple inches between the thermometer and any meat or the side of the cooker. Water in the bowl will tend to keep your...

Looks like you've got your answers. If you want a different spin on pulled or shredded beef, look up a pepper stout beef recipe. If you don't want to use the beer, it's also good if you substitute beef broth. If you want sliced brisket, just chop the point for your wife. It's similar to...

If you 100% don't want to have to mess with coals, smoke it for 4-5 hours then chuck it in the oven. Your next best bet for cooking at 225F is to wait until the hottest day in the summer, load as much charcoal as will fit, run a dry water pan, and use the minion method. Otherwise, sometimes...

The #1 hardest thing is knowing when the brisket is done. It's not done at a certain temp, and it's not done at a certain time. You have to test by feel, and that takes practice. It really is about poking in a thermometer and when there's pretty much no resistance, it's done. The big problem...