Well, here's my "story" of our first smoke/cook on our new 18in WSM. We have decided we WERE successful!!
Some boring, pre WSM ownership info. I've been smoking on gas smokers for quite a while. We always felt what we cooked/smoked was very good. But, about a month or 2 ago, something came over me, and I wanted to try smoking with charcoal, I wanted to be a more "pure" pit grasshopper. So I researched and researched and researched...and then....I researched different charcoal smokers suitable for home use. Cut to the chase, all I read were good things about the WSM. If fit my budget and did not have a large "foot print", so 2 Mondays ago, I placed my order on Amazon for an 18inch WSM. I visited one at our local HD to touch and feel what I wanted to order.
WSM arrived last Tuesday, I put it together, then Wednesday I started to "burn it in" or start to season it. I was planning our first cook on it for yesterday, and was going to season it more on Saturday, but the weather scrapped that. After reading stuff on the TVWB saying that maybe seasoning was not completely necessary, (I also read how some "pro's say seasoning is needed) I went with, lets fire it up and see how she goes. So that was the plan.
For our first smoke I wanted to do something simple, that I felt we had less of a chance of screwing up, and went with a couple of slabs of baby backs, and one slab of spare ribs. Now, going into yesterday, I read and I planned and I read and I planned and I read and I planned...then after doing that, I read and I planned how the first smoke would go.
Was going with minion method to start coals, pretty full load in charcoal ring, going to use water pan bout 3/4's full, add wood, cover bring up to temp adjust vents to get to about 225, figured a 4-6 hour smoke for the ribs...cold beer....nice day....things are looking good when we started, but then, we started....oops.
Somehow through all my smoking stories, wife remained interested in what I was doing, she figured was good "therapy" for me, and in the end good eats for her. Though she wanted for me to bask in the glory of my first charcoal experience, she said she'd help if I needed her to....rut-roh.
So fire is going pretty good, put water bowl in place, I say, sure, fill the bowl up to about here (showing about where) with water from the hose, whups. She knda forgot she wasn't watering shrubs, so maybe had the force of the hose a bit too high, water splashed, I head some sizzling sounds I'm like, oh no....fire got wet. So take main smoker section with water bowl off, somehow without spilling more water, see how fire really is. But it seemed ok, was still smoking, but I decided "stirred" the charcoals around a lttle, all seemed ok, so put smoker section and water bowl back on, finished filling bowl, put lid back, sat back to wait for temps to come up, adjust to get to 225, toss on the ribs, and sit back and watch the magic happen.
Waiting for temps to come up, they were up, but only to like 252-267, something like that...thought they'd go higher....thought, maybe the water did drown out some coals....but....look around, top vent was completely closed...oops...again. So open that up....got to around 280 or so...said...ok, lets start trying to get this sucker down, adjusted vents, and without too much fussin, was able to maintain about 221-237 degrees...when I watched the Maverick ET-733. A couple of times I noticed temps would drop 8-12...but, no panic in this grasshopper. My approach was simply to pen the side door, stir the briquettes around a little with stick, close it back up, temps came back up....ahhhh....thats good now...back to the beer.
Now my other "mistake", was I put 3 slabs of ribs flat on the top grate....probably not the best idea, where that reared up was after cooking was over and I think had some extra grease drip down sides of smoker, wasn't too bad to clean up. And as the ribs cooked they did pull back some so less of an issue after a couple hours or so smoking. I had intended to start out with some rib racks I had in my gas smoker, but I had not used them much and they were rusted and corroded, so I pitched those, and have added a decent rib rack to my list of, what should I buy now for grilling and smoking. I know I could have "snaked" the ribs or something else to get them to fit, but I was stubborn and kept them flat.
But in the end, I decided to not wrap these ribs...kept track of temps, spritzed them every hour or so, basted them with a sauce I made, and at about 6 hours almost to the minute, those dudes were at around 180 degrees, and bending quite a bit, I declared, smoke off!! Took em off smoker, brought them inside on cutting boarding, covered them and let them rest for about 45 minutes before we cut them. Them babies were gooooood!!!
So, in conclusion, yea I know, this got kind of long winded, the WSM performed even with a few minor "faux pas" pretty much as expected, probably even more awesome with us not doing things quite right!! Looking forward to the next smoke..which may be in a day or 2 with a pork butt...almost can't wait!!!
Thanks for listening..
Some boring, pre WSM ownership info. I've been smoking on gas smokers for quite a while. We always felt what we cooked/smoked was very good. But, about a month or 2 ago, something came over me, and I wanted to try smoking with charcoal, I wanted to be a more "pure" pit grasshopper. So I researched and researched and researched...and then....I researched different charcoal smokers suitable for home use. Cut to the chase, all I read were good things about the WSM. If fit my budget and did not have a large "foot print", so 2 Mondays ago, I placed my order on Amazon for an 18inch WSM. I visited one at our local HD to touch and feel what I wanted to order.
WSM arrived last Tuesday, I put it together, then Wednesday I started to "burn it in" or start to season it. I was planning our first cook on it for yesterday, and was going to season it more on Saturday, but the weather scrapped that. After reading stuff on the TVWB saying that maybe seasoning was not completely necessary, (I also read how some "pro's say seasoning is needed) I went with, lets fire it up and see how she goes. So that was the plan.
For our first smoke I wanted to do something simple, that I felt we had less of a chance of screwing up, and went with a couple of slabs of baby backs, and one slab of spare ribs. Now, going into yesterday, I read and I planned and I read and I planned and I read and I planned...then after doing that, I read and I planned how the first smoke would go.
Was going with minion method to start coals, pretty full load in charcoal ring, going to use water pan bout 3/4's full, add wood, cover bring up to temp adjust vents to get to about 225, figured a 4-6 hour smoke for the ribs...cold beer....nice day....things are looking good when we started, but then, we started....oops.
Somehow through all my smoking stories, wife remained interested in what I was doing, she figured was good "therapy" for me, and in the end good eats for her. Though she wanted for me to bask in the glory of my first charcoal experience, she said she'd help if I needed her to....rut-roh.
So fire is going pretty good, put water bowl in place, I say, sure, fill the bowl up to about here (showing about where) with water from the hose, whups. She knda forgot she wasn't watering shrubs, so maybe had the force of the hose a bit too high, water splashed, I head some sizzling sounds I'm like, oh no....fire got wet. So take main smoker section with water bowl off, somehow without spilling more water, see how fire really is. But it seemed ok, was still smoking, but I decided "stirred" the charcoals around a lttle, all seemed ok, so put smoker section and water bowl back on, finished filling bowl, put lid back, sat back to wait for temps to come up, adjust to get to 225, toss on the ribs, and sit back and watch the magic happen.
Waiting for temps to come up, they were up, but only to like 252-267, something like that...thought they'd go higher....thought, maybe the water did drown out some coals....but....look around, top vent was completely closed...oops...again. So open that up....got to around 280 or so...said...ok, lets start trying to get this sucker down, adjusted vents, and without too much fussin, was able to maintain about 221-237 degrees...when I watched the Maverick ET-733. A couple of times I noticed temps would drop 8-12...but, no panic in this grasshopper. My approach was simply to pen the side door, stir the briquettes around a little with stick, close it back up, temps came back up....ahhhh....thats good now...back to the beer.
Now my other "mistake", was I put 3 slabs of ribs flat on the top grate....probably not the best idea, where that reared up was after cooking was over and I think had some extra grease drip down sides of smoker, wasn't too bad to clean up. And as the ribs cooked they did pull back some so less of an issue after a couple hours or so smoking. I had intended to start out with some rib racks I had in my gas smoker, but I had not used them much and they were rusted and corroded, so I pitched those, and have added a decent rib rack to my list of, what should I buy now for grilling and smoking. I know I could have "snaked" the ribs or something else to get them to fit, but I was stubborn and kept them flat.
But in the end, I decided to not wrap these ribs...kept track of temps, spritzed them every hour or so, basted them with a sauce I made, and at about 6 hours almost to the minute, those dudes were at around 180 degrees, and bending quite a bit, I declared, smoke off!! Took em off smoker, brought them inside on cutting boarding, covered them and let them rest for about 45 minutes before we cut them. Them babies were gooooood!!!
So, in conclusion, yea I know, this got kind of long winded, the WSM performed even with a few minor "faux pas" pretty much as expected, probably even more awesome with us not doing things quite right!! Looking forward to the next smoke..which may be in a day or 2 with a pork butt...almost can't wait!!!
Thanks for listening..
the next time.
