Jim C in Denver
TVWBB All-Star
Wanted to gather some input before taking my new Billows out for its inital spin tomorrow.
18 WSM, no water, FireDial diffuser plate, cooking a smallish bone in pork shoulder, want to run 250-275F to get a baseline. Weather is sunny and 45F. Based on prior threads, here's my plan/questions:
More lit charcoal. I usually have done a Soo donut with only 10-20 lit coals. Consensus seems to be that you want to have more lit coals going so that the fan has more lit coals to work on to make the temps go up and down in small increments. And that with the fan controlling the airflow, you don't have to worry about too many lit causing a runaway temp spike. So maybe 40-50 lit. More?
Type of charcoal. Regular KBB or the hotter/faster burning K Pro?
Scattered lit instead of donut? Seems like scattering the lit coals around is more consistent with letting the fan manage the fire, rather than using the donut shape to restrict the fire's spread/temp? Or does a donut (with more lit coals) still work fine too? If using a donut, would you position the lit closer to the blower to make sure it stays lit and spreads?
Fan into lower vent hole or upper? Some say the lower vent hole is better since it blow air up into the coals rather than across.
Top vent. 25% open or less.
Under or over shoot. Is the bigger worry an overshoot or undershoot of the target temp? Or does the fan work equally well to bring the temp up and down?
When to put the fan on? The instructions say that you should run the WSM with the fan going for a while before starting to cook. But I really like to get on with the cooking asap. Especially since a stabilized cooker becomes immediately unstabilized once you add a big piece of cold meat. So I was thinking it was better to get the fire going and the meat on first my normal way, and then add the fan to cruise control it.
Not for tomorrow, but should I get the fan damper? Seems like that damper is mostly a kamado thing, where the on/off fan (versus a variable fan) is too much CFM for a super efficient cooker. While that may not make sense for a 22 (where some folks actually use two fans) maybe a more constant/lower CFM blast might be good in an 18?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Jim
18 WSM, no water, FireDial diffuser plate, cooking a smallish bone in pork shoulder, want to run 250-275F to get a baseline. Weather is sunny and 45F. Based on prior threads, here's my plan/questions:
More lit charcoal. I usually have done a Soo donut with only 10-20 lit coals. Consensus seems to be that you want to have more lit coals going so that the fan has more lit coals to work on to make the temps go up and down in small increments. And that with the fan controlling the airflow, you don't have to worry about too many lit causing a runaway temp spike. So maybe 40-50 lit. More?
Type of charcoal. Regular KBB or the hotter/faster burning K Pro?
Scattered lit instead of donut? Seems like scattering the lit coals around is more consistent with letting the fan manage the fire, rather than using the donut shape to restrict the fire's spread/temp? Or does a donut (with more lit coals) still work fine too? If using a donut, would you position the lit closer to the blower to make sure it stays lit and spreads?
Fan into lower vent hole or upper? Some say the lower vent hole is better since it blow air up into the coals rather than across.
Top vent. 25% open or less.
Under or over shoot. Is the bigger worry an overshoot or undershoot of the target temp? Or does the fan work equally well to bring the temp up and down?
When to put the fan on? The instructions say that you should run the WSM with the fan going for a while before starting to cook. But I really like to get on with the cooking asap. Especially since a stabilized cooker becomes immediately unstabilized once you add a big piece of cold meat. So I was thinking it was better to get the fire going and the meat on first my normal way, and then add the fan to cruise control it.
Not for tomorrow, but should I get the fan damper? Seems like that damper is mostly a kamado thing, where the on/off fan (versus a variable fan) is too much CFM for a super efficient cooker. While that may not make sense for a 22 (where some folks actually use two fans) maybe a more constant/lower CFM blast might be good in an 18?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Jim