Vents

It was a fun exercise to illustrate what might happen. There certainly are plenty of other scenarios like what happens with two open on the bottom in Method 2. Or what happens with a leak in the system.

Harry does use the stoker for his class overnight cook because he wants to sleep and I am unwilling to watch it overnight. By watching I mean, check it every hour or so even though the WSMs are steady. However, we run them without stokers all the time. We probably run them without fans more often than with fans. In a perfect world, I would run without a fan, check on the WSM every hour or so, cook in a humid environment (like Chicago), be able to bend down to control the bottom vents, and cook a Japanese wagyu A4 brisket that has a huge point. No injection, just rub. Pink butcher paper. Then slice with a custom handmade Japanese brisket knife made from Damascus steel with 1000 layers and German style handle. That would be perfection.

The latest owner's manual (which many of us ignore) says the following about vents. Emphasis is mine.

• Pick-up the lid by the handle, place it on top of the center section and open the vent on the lid.
• The vents are used to regulate heat within the smoker. Opening vents increases temperature and closing vents decreases temperature.
• Temperature of 250°F is ideal for most meats. Check the temperature every 15 minutes and open or close the bottom vents as needed until you achieve and maintain your target temperature.

Although it does not say "open the vent on the lid FULLY", it also does not say PARTIALLY or 50%, so I interpret "open the vent" to mean "fully". And there is no mention of adjusting the top vent for temperature control; only later is the top vent mentioned when it says to "close all vents to extinguish the coals".

Going further, I thought the way all these automatic temperature control devices work is to block all the bottom vent holes except for the one through which the blower controls air flow, the top vent is open, and the fan modulates the amount of air entering the bottom of the cooker to increase/decrease temperature. These devices are not adjusting exhaust at the lid to control temperature—although there are some less popular devices like TipTopTemp that do just that for Weber kettles, BGE, Kamado, etc.

As for keeping gasses inside the cooker for a better smoke ring, that's something that may be important to a barbecue competitor and maybe to some backyard barbecuers, but it's not important to me and to experts like Aaron Franklin whose brisket gets a very light smoke ring because his pits have massive airflow.

In closing...I will continue to recommend that WSM owners leave the top vent wide open and control temperature using the bottom vents.

The only time I mess with the top vent is when the temps get out of control. I’m with the manual on this one. Restrict at the point of input. Also, one thought on this is that if you have the top vent closed or mostly closed, when you go to raise the lid, you’re going to create a suction and draw ash up onto the food.

Chris Allingham said:

The latest owner's manual (which many of us ignore) says the following about vents. Emphasis is mine.

• Pick-up the lid by the handle, place it on top of the center section and open the vent on the lid.
• The vents are used to regulate heat within the smoker. Opening vents increases temperature and closing vents decreases temperature.
• Temperature of 250°F is ideal for most meats. Check the temperature every 15 minutes and open or close the bottom vents as needed until you achieve and maintain your target temperature.

Although it does not say "open the vent on the lid FULLY", it also does not say PARTIALLY or 50%, so I interpret "open the vent" to mean "fully". And there is no mention of adjusting the top vent for temperature control; only later is the top vent mentioned when it says to "close all vents to extinguish the coals".

Going further, I thought the way all these automatic temperature control devices work is to block all the bottom vent holes except for the one through which the blower controls air flow, the top vent is open, and the fan modulates the amount of air entering the bottom of the cooker to increase/decrease temperature. These devices are not adjusting exhaust at the lid to control temperature—although there are some less popular devices like TipTopTemp that do just that for Weber kettles, BGE, Kamado, etc.

As for keeping gasses inside the cooker for a better smoke ring, that's something that may be important to a barbecue competitor and maybe to some backyard barbecuers, but it's not important to me and to experts like Aaron Franklin whose brisket gets a very light smoke ring because his pits have massive airflow.

In closing...I will continue to recommend that WSM owners leave the top vent wide open and control temperature using the bottom vents.

Click to expand...

I mostly agree with this. I wonder it the top vent method would even translate to the 22.5. I might try it on some ribs. I'd be more scared on a super long cook. My tendency is to believe more airflow is better. On my offset I run pretty much wide open and try to control the temp with the size of my fire. On a WSM, with minion method you have to restrict airflow. Admittedly, I get pretty anemic smoke rings. Harry and Donna have also cooked more briskets than I'll ever see.

I have one correction to my model. After confirming with Harry, he says that CO, NO, + H2O are responsible for smoke ring development, not carbonyls and phenols which are important in crust development.

I looked back at our Austin trip, http://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/2013/02/austin-barbecue-crawl-weekend-part-3-of-4-december-2012/, and yes, Chris is right. I don't see much of a smoke ring on the brisket at least. So indeed, the absence of a smoke ring, made no difference. The brisket was still very delicious.

Smoke rings are something I worry about when competing but don't even think about when judging.

Let me propose something else. One of the things I remember the most when it comes to crust, was how shockingly beautiful the crust was at my last Weber visit.
http://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/2014/...y-donna-fong-of-butchers-daughter-bbq-part-2/
There is a photo of the brisket we cooked at Weber and I remember being floored. It isn't the best photo but it does show how even, deep and oily the crust was. I have always thought this was because of the humidity which we don't get here in CA. And I don't think putting water in the pan is the same as having high humidity air flowing through WSM. We cook with SRFs all the time and it doesn't turn out like that in CA at least not on WSMs.

I think the higher the humidity, the better the crust. I don't believe the humidity can get so high that the crust never develops. That being said, I'm convinced that my 14" WSM is able to generate a better crust on butt than my other larger units because the moisture that comes off the pork butt is confined to a small space. This raises the humidity and produces a terrific crust. At least that's what happened in Lancaster when I cooked a whole contest in a 14" WSM. I haven't cooked on it in a while but I will next weekend. I'll test it out again.

Does closing down the top vent add to a higher humidity? I don't know. I guess it should.

I do top open and adjust the intake vents. Sometimes two are closed and I control temp with one intake vent. So far I haven't had bitter tasting meat but that's only 8 years experience. .

I'm not in Harry Soo's league and I really respect his opinion. However, I am not what Harry would call a "seasoned pitmaster". I can't read smoke the way Harry does so I go the safe route and control with the bottom vents.