Any ideas what happened?


 
Tye R.

Tye R.

TVWBB Fan
Did a long cold weather smoke recently (15 hours and had to add charcoal 3 times). To keep temps up I had to crack the lid to get more oxygen into the WSM. When the pork butts were finished I pulled them and there were black granules on the outside of the foil wrap. When I went to close the lid vent the dial spins all the way around - the little tabs that go into the vent holes that limit movement were gone. I can’t imagine the little tabs got hot enough to melt, but this old simple mind is stumped as to what happened. Anyone seen anything like this before?
 
The dome is fine, I’ve had several good cooks since then. It’s just the silver dial that controls the airflow and it’s just missing the two little inside tabs.
 
I get that but the dampers are mounted to the dome. Weber should just sent the whole thing so you don't have to drill out the rivets holding the dampers.
 
Gotcha 👍🏼 . So far it’s not been an issue - I just have to set the damper by sight and not by feel with the tabs gone. Just like the first scratch on a new car my WSM has been christened - no more worrying about that first ding anymore. Now I won’t feel bad when I cut the notch in it for probe wires.
 
Each hole in the damper is supposed to have one of those little tab stops. They've either been broken off, bent up and out of the way, or not cut into the damper when stamped. You can get replacement dampers from Weber, but then you have to drill-out the rivets and fasten the new ones using nuts/bolts which is OK but the original rivets are a better fit. So if I were you, I'd do as you say and just live with it and adjust by sight. There's no way they melted off, it's aluminum and the cooker doesn't get that hot. The black stuff on your foiled pork was probably carbonized grease/smoke that flaked off the inside of the lid, or something that floated up from the fire down below.
 
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