a bad day smoking is beter than...


 
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Tom Raveret

TVWBB Pro
well I started this smoke with two 6.5 lb shoulders at 10:30 last night.

Temp was -4 and windchill -20 though I was pretty sheltered from it from the NW After an hour of temps being too low I fired up a few more briquettes and as I added them the fire flared to 330 on the maverick. I immediately shut down all the dampers and half closed the top to get temps down to 250. once I had them under control and stable I waited another hour and went to bed at about 3:00 am.

Slept through the low temp alarm this morning getting up a couple of hours later to find the smoker at 165 and the meat at 140.

I stoked the coals a little and there was definately still some life in there and noticed quite a bit of ash on the meat an grate. I figured zi'd take them in and cider vinegar rinse them off. The water pan was low so I started filling with hot water 1 qt a t a time and right when i was almost full she gave way. THE WHOLE FULL WATER PAN CRASHED DOWN INTO THE COALS. (now I really needed to wash the meat down) I cant for the life of me figure out why this hppened. The pan wa just as full the night before and I didn't move the pan. The only thing I can guess is that it wasnt as stable as I thought it as last night and that little extra weight let it bend enough to get by the one of the stays. I cheked it for stability last night before assemvbling it. (I'm using the original WSM warterp pan) ARRRGH

Well I totally disassembled took the meat inside nd restarted a whole new fire using minion method aagain and have the temp under control (this time on the way up not fighting it on the way back down. Did a good vinegar wash to get rid of the soot that was on them.

I've never had soot like that come up (i didnt stoke the coals last night.)

Any ideas?
 
I'd bet your water pan somehow spilled some water on the coals. As I guess you found out, this shoots a cloud of ash-impregnated steam up into the cooker. Maybe it slipped down, spilled water but not the whole bowl, then when you refilled it, it was unstable and the new weight caused it to crash down. Just a guess.

Tom Chilton
 
Tom,

The "EXACT" thing happened to me on my second cook.

Gosh I was mad - fortunately, I was just preparing the smoker to add the meat when this occurred - so none of the meat was contaminated.

The water-pan modification (to use the charcoal pan from a Brinkman as your WSM waterpan) partially solves this problem....

The Brinkman charcoal pan is a larger diamter than the WSM water pan, and it holds more water. However, even the Brinkman pan has the potential to fall through - albeit, less than the WSM water pan. -Albert
 
I solved that problem by using four small hose clamp that I purchase at the auto parts store.

|
|__
^
|
hose clamp goes here for each peg.

It gives it a snug fit and prevents the pan from sliding back and fourth.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

 

Back
Top