Leave as is or Auto Temp Controller

A few years ago I got the bottom of the line PartyQ from BBQ Guru. Love it. When we were competing, we switched from the big Lang to two WSM when the team shrunk down to just two of us. It allowed me to get 5 hours sleep which was great. I would not go back. Use it for every cook now.

Dustin Dorsey said:

How new are you to the WSM? I know when I first started, I fiddled with the vents constantly and never waited for the temps to settle. I had constant yoyo-ing temps and chased it all night. These days I'm way more relaxed in my approach and it works better. I seriously would have 227 instead of 225 and would go make a vent change, which is just silly. I'm pretty happy if I'm cooking low and slow to hit 225 to 250. I'm trying to cook a little hotter say around 275, I let it ride about 260 to 280. I also know roughly how many coals and what vent settings I need to roughly hit my temp.

I generally don't like temp controllers because I see them as less manly. I'm also the kind of idiot that thinks fruit woods are somehow more feminine than hard woods. I have issues. I think you'll get it either way.

Click to expand...

Is there a formula for how many coals and what temp? Just curious- havent done my first cook yet buy am looking forward to this weekend!!!

JimZ said:

Is there a formula for how many coals and what temp? Just curious- havent done my first cook yet buy am looking forward to this weekend!!!

Click to expand...

Jim, For ribs, (for example) I like to fill the charcoal holder and heat up 25 pcs in my chimney and light it a la Minion Method. I have found that for me, 25 pcs is my sweet spot. Whenever I use 50 or a full chimney, I find that my temps go too high even using a DigiQ.

I use to be of the school of thought that there is no fun unless I'm tending the fire. Then I got an ATC, the cyber q. Had it a week, done two cooks will never go back. Temps are way more consistent, food is just as good and I don't have to get out of bed or set 3 am alarms to check things. I start things up and move on, where as before I had to have twelve to fifteen hours to devote, now I can start the night before, get a good night's rest, check fuel/water and off to work. If I get curious I can check/adjust temps using the webs. If food finishes early ramp mode kicks in lowering pit temp the closer the meat gets to being done and holding it at temp till I get home. To make a long answer short no one needs one but there sure nice to have.

I used to do my overnights without the ATC. The Maverick would wake me up every few hours to alert me to temp swings. I guess I didn't have my alarms configured correctly. Oh well. I invested in an Auber about two years ago. Once I dialed it in with Auber's help, I can now sleep through the night.

Bottom line: BBQ is not as much science as it is art. Precision is simply not required.

Sure, if you’re a competition BBQer looking for a paycheck you need precision so they are a requirement. But if you are a backyard BBQer (like me) then the WSM will set in on a temp and stay there forever all by itself. Now, that temp may be a bit higher or lower than you think it should be but I figure the WSM knows more about BBQ than I do so why argue with it.

Now, I don’t do overnight cooks. Everything cooks within daylight hours. And I’m not sure where all these temp swings come from: My well seasoned WSM is rock solid without an ATC. Needle never moves despite me watching it.

The more I do, the less “stuff” I feel like fooling around with. I have just gone back to basics across the board with cooking almost everything. I’m not saying I don’t do complicated projects but, fewer things between effort and food seem to work for me better than too many gadgets.

I would probably get one for my 22.5 because I can’t seem to get it past about 7 hours on a load of charcoal. That is with the bottom full. Was wondering if that woul maybe get me more life.

PHolder said:

I used to do my overnights without the ATC. The Maverick would wake me up every few hours to alert me to temp swings. I guess I didn't have my alarms configured correctly. Oh well. I invested in an Auber about two years ago. Once I dialed it in with Auber's help, I can now sleep through the night.

Click to expand...

Which Auber model was that?

I-40 business still messed up?

Headed that way soon.

Everything posted on this thread is generally true. An ATC is not needed to cook with the WSM. Most of my cooks have been without one. However, in most cases, including mine, it's not a matter of need but of want. I like cooking Q and I have fun using my toys. It blows my Grandsons' minds when I break out some new electronic gadget that they've never seen. One advantage for me is I do less walking on these OLD legs so I don't get as tired.

I just got bbq guru dx3 today. Haven't used it yet but there are 2 reasons for getting this.

1) I love briskets and do overnight cooks. My wireless thermometer beeps when a certain temp is reached but I am not notified if the fire starts dying and temp drops. So basically if i want to cook at 250, I would set alarm to beep if it goes to 260 to wake me up and close the vents but there was nothing alerting me if temp started dipping to 215 etc.
As a result, I'd set my alarm to wake me up every hour so I can peak at the grill temp before going back to sleep.
This resulted in me being very cranky the next day from lack of sleep when the entire reason for doing a brisket was to have ppl over and have a good time.
2) I've tried different methods like the modified snake (firebrick laid out to create a path for burning charcoal) but I noticed I only get about 6 hours burn time and am using way too much charcoal for a single cook. I heard using an atc in combo with a terra cotta saucer could effectively give me 12+ hours of burn time.

I bought a step drill bit and plan on cutting a 1 3/8 " hole tomorrow (right next to the bottom vent for a clean look and to get the full hole size working from the pit viper fan rather than using one of the vent holes which is smaller than the fan size.
My hope is that this will let me to truly set it and forget it and get a good night's rest every time I bbq.

It does feel like cheating but I'm ok with that. I bought a wsm because I like the taste better than a traeger so now I feel like I got the best of both worlds. I care about the taste of the food more than perfecting the art of fire management

My recommendation is to learn your cooker as it comes out of the box for several months, then you'll have a better idea of what mods you truly need.

I broke down and bought the signals/billows a while back and have used it a few times. It's good for when you want to cook something and you're too busy. Having the experience I have running without it makes it really easy to set it up right. If I don't feel like breaking it out I don't have to.

Total rookie move.
I got the bbq guru dx3. Drilled a 1 3/8" hole next to one of the bottom vents. Install looked slick and clean.
I started an over night cook. Closed the bottom vents, opened the top vent and set my temp for 250, watched it get up to 245ish, heard the fan whirling and then went to bed.
I noticed that the temp was dropping little by little throughout the night when I was half asleep looking at my wireless thermometer. I was too tired and too determined to let the bbq guru do the work so I let things be.
Next morning, I found the temp all the way down to 210.
Scratching my head, I pulled out the manual and read it for the first time.
Apparently, there is a vent on the pit viper itself and I had it closed off the entire night / choking the oxygen.
I took this opportunity to add a 2/3rd full chimney of lit briquettes and cracked the pit viper open 1/3rd (as manual recommended) and watched the temp climb to 250.

I then left for my son's baseball game and came back hours later to a 250 temp grill. This was freaking amazing!
I then finished my short rib plate, pulled it off, and threw it in the cooler.
With plenty of.juice left in the charcoal, I turned the temp on the guru to 300 to put on some wings.

This thing is like an oven, it came up to 300 within minutes and I put on my wings.

Besides my initial mistake of not opening the pit viper vent Bbq guru has honestly automated BBQing. There's litey nothing to think or worry about anymore.

I am now going to focus on meat injections and different rubs as fire management has been taken off my plate.
I can't wait for the next cook.