Brand new to WSM and smoke


 

Jon S

New member
Just bought the 18.5 in WSM and looking to do one of the beginner chicken recipes on "Cooking Topics" page of this site as my first smoke. My question is for those recipes it only mentions to leave the top and bottom vents 100% open but doesn't say what temp range it should be in for the length of the cook so should I be concerned with the temp or just follow those instructions word for word?
After chicken I'll be looking to expand into ribs, pork butts, briskets...etc. Any helpful tips and or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
If you want crispy-skinned chicken, it needs 325o. Takes about an hour (same as in a regular oven). All the vents should be open attain that temp.

Temperature in the smoker is the same as in an oven. 325 is 325 :)
 
And if you have problems getting to that temp you can always crack the door on the wsm open. I have 2 machine screws through the door of my WSM. That way they are like little legs to prop the door open when doing high heat cooks.
 
As a general rule, the top vent should always be 100% open. Use the bottom vents to control the temp, but in stock configuration, you'd be hard-pressed to get more than 325-250 in the WSM with all the lower vents 100% open.

Also, I (and others) often take out the water pan completely so the drippings fall directly on the lit charcoal and add to the aroma & flavor. This works best when cooking on just the top grate; if using both, you'd want to rotate the meat top to bottom for even cooking.
 
Ditto on taking the water pan out for chicken. It will help you get higher temps as well. Really, for chicken it's almost the hotter the better. Some people however, don't enjoy the taste from the drippings hitting the coals. I love it.
 
One trick I've learned to get higher heat (above 300) is to slightly offset the lid of the smoker from the base creating a gap between the lid and the middle section. This creates more exhaust and therefore more draft for the coals to ignite.

The other option is to drill and add another exhaust vent for high temp cooks.

I can't take credit for this trick though. I learned it from Mike Scrutchfield on Ray Basso's forum
 
Sorry it took so long to follow-up. The chicken came out great. The thermometer at the top was reading right around 300 the whole time and my probe in the middle section was reading at about the same. Took a little longer to get fully cooked but still tasted great and was juicy. We did have the water pan in there to catch drippings, if I remove it next time will it help get the temp even higher?
My only problem was that the skin didn't really crisp and had a slightly off-putting taste to it. I lowered the rack right above the coals, could the flavor be from that?

Is it possible to get the chicken cooked and skin crispy without putting it right above the coals? If so, how?
 
I am not too fond of cooking chicken in the WSM.
I prefer it straight on the grill, either spatchcocked or on a rotisserie.
It just gets the skin more crispy in my opinion.

When I do use the WSM, I remove the middle and top section when the chicken gets to the right internal temperature, let the coals come up to proper heat, and then move the chicken on the grate over the bottom section to crisp up the skin a bit better (I am using a lot of words here to try and explain what I do, hope you get the drift :cool:)
 

 

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