Still burning....


 
Mike Gray

Mike Gray

TVWBB Super Fan
So I made beef ribs yesterday and purposely filled the ring full of fuel and used the minion method to cook with the intention of keeping any unused fuel for later sessions. I shut all the vents at 4pm yesterday and watched as the temp didn't change a degree for about 6 hours.

Right before I went to bed about 11pm the temp was around 230. This morning 6am the temp is just south of 150 which means it probably burned all the fuel in the ring instead of burning out.

The first cook I tried to gauge the fuel and almost ran out before I finished, so this time I wanted to make sure I had enough.

What did I do wrong? Is there something beside closing the vents that I missed?
 
Top vent was shut and I checked the lid and all seals for leaks. It must be the door, but I don't really know how to get that to seal any better.
 
Mike,the WSM is not air tight. The more you cook,the inside will get more gunked up. That will make it more tight,so you will be able to save your fuel. HTH
 
I have the 22.5 and I could not get the door to fit tight. I know people say it does not matter but I ended up taping it shut with aluminum duct tape. Now after a half dozen or more cooks it act a lot like the way I hear an UDS burns.

Just a week ago I got 10 hours burn time using an 8lb bag of cowboy lump. It held steady the whole time and the next morning there was enough lump left over to make it worth saving for another cook. There's a lot more room under the pan, which I use empty, to add more lump. I think I could easily get 12-14 hour burn no problem.
 
My WSM is not air tight either. My charcoal bowl is out of round but I have a new one coming from Weber. I shut all of the vents on my first cook after about six hours and I had a lot of charcoal left. The next morning they were all gone.

The cook went well anyway and the temps were pretty steady so I was happy. I probably would have lived with my out of round bowl but I figured since it was new, I would use the warranty.

Wayne
 
I saw those pics of beef ribs and all I could think was that was a LOT of charcoal.

I might get some expanded metal and make a smaller ring like John Ford did. I don't have a big wsm, but I was able to tweak my wsm door til there's very little smoke coming out of it. I'd also check everything out with a tape measure, just to be sure nothing's out of round.

My charcoal goes through charcoal a lot slower than it did when new, so I guess it snuffs the fire out a lot quicker as well, as Phil points out. I don't really remember.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dave Russell:
I saw those pics of beef ribs and all I could think was that was a LOT of charcoal.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree, it was a lot, but it was done intentionally. I plan to cook again this weekend and wanted to see if the minion method followed by shutting all vents would actually preserve unused coals for another cook this weekend. It didn't and since the weather was much warmer than my first cook it didn't take nearly as much. I think I will work on the measurements for the next cook and keep it simple. Maybe I'll try a full ring again when my WSM has more "seasoning" and seals better.
 
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