Brand new, desperate fora advice


 
N

Nevin H.

New member
Hi all,

Bought and assembled my 18" WSM last night, testing/seasoning tonight and hoping to deliver a perfect beer can chicken for supper tomorrow.

All sounds great but here is my problem.

I am doing a bit of a practice/seasoning tonight and this is what I attempted with no meat or waterbowl.

I filled the charcoal bowl about half full with lump charcoal.
filled a chimney, lit it, wait 2-3 minutes and seemed to have a pretty good burn already with the coals so I added them into the smoker and put the lid on.

I had all three vents at half for the first 10-15 minutes then knocked them back to about 25% after that. The temperature was at 200 when I closed them to 25% but now my temp has spiked to 350+ and there is no getting it down. The top vent was wide open the whole time.

I am trying to follow these steps below and am worried that I might not be able to pull this off tomorrow.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=weber+smokey+mountain+beer+can+chicken&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35

Is this because there is no water or have I just messed something obvious up?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
Don't worry to much. If the temp gets too hot the chicken will be done sooner. Just monitor your internal temps of the chicken. I would add water to the pan.
 
The only thing I can offer is...
Based on what you wrote, 2-3 minutes is not enough time for the chimney coals before dumping them into the cooker.
You need to get them really going first before dumping. Also, how did you light the chimney ?
 
I put two rings of paper under it and lit them. It thought the two to three minutes was crazy quick too, but they were clearly burning and it stayed lit no problem.

Is there more reason to let then burn longer than just staying lit? As I said, there was no staying lit and getting heat.
Thanks for your help btw.
 
2-3 minutes seems like a very short time for a chimney full to get going..are you solely relying on the thermometer on the lid to get your temps? They are notorious for being inaccurate and besides your food is not being cooked on the lid. Also did you load the charcoal ring nice and tight with med-large pieces of lump? When using lump you have to really pack it in the ring as best you can to avoid any gaps between the pieces of lump.
 
I did not pack or select pieces of charcoal. I will next time thanks.

I currently have the Maverick dual thermometer on order. For this cook I am sadly forced to depend on the lid thermometer.
 
Nevin H. said:
I did not pack or select pieces of charcoal. I will next time thanks.

I currently have the Maverick dual thermometer on order. For this cook I am sadly forced to depend on the lid thermometer.
Click to expand...

Try packing the med-large pieces next time and see how it goes. Keep in mind that the thermometers on the lids can be off by as much as 50 degrees +\-
 
Having never seen either charcoal or lump ready in 2-3 minutes, unless some form of accelerant was used. And then, it is just the accelerant burning.
The coals should be at least partially ashed over prior to dumping into the cooker. Normally this will take anywhere from 10 (at the bare minimum) to 20 or so minutes.

The times you indicated suggest to me that something else is in play here. By chance, did you use any liquid charcoal starter ?
You indicated you used lump. Might not have anything to do with what happened, but what brand lump did you use ?

The other possibility is that you were able to start, although abeit barely, some parts of each piece of lump and once inside the WSM, it finally took off.

The 350+ degrees you saw are what one would expect to see when starting with a full chimney full.
 
Nevin H. said:
For sure I will be using the water bowl for the cook tomorrow. Thanks for the reply.
Click to expand...

well , doing chicken you might want to rethink that. Chicken likes to be cooked hot and fast. You get nicer skin , the meat is still amazingly moist AND your meal is ready in a fairly normal cooking time. The chicken cook will season your smoker (as will the next few cooks) and once the WSM is gunked up I think you'll find that it won't run so hot.

and when your temps are running wild like that don't be afraid to close the bottom vents all the way or close two and just leave one cracked a hair. And even close the top one down to maybe a quarter open. By curtailing the air flw you'll starve that blaze and get your temp where you want it. There's a few people on this site that never use water and I am coming around to that way of thinking myself. But you do what feels sensible to you.
 
As a WSM beginner, pay zero attention to the temperature of the cooker. Pay attention to the temperature of the bird. Temp down where the thigh meets the breast, pull at 165, rest and eat. Trying to zero in on a temp with a new WSM will put you on a straight path to the insane asylum. Take a look at the beginner chicken articles in the cooking section.
 
I smoked a chicken this past weekend and used an empty foiled water pan. I also had a pork loin on so I strived to keep the smoker temp around 250. Both turned out really nice. As others said getting your coals and smoker to the right temp before adding the meat is important but chicken is very forgiving. That is why I chose it for my first cook. Good luck!
 
Dave/G said:
Jen H said:
getting your coals and smoker to the right temp before adding the meat is important /QUOTE]

Not for everybody. There are many instances when meat goes on cold so temp can be caught on the way up
Click to expand...
Dave I am a newbie. Just curious what the advantage is? Maybe I am using the preheated oven mentality which might not translate to smoking.
Click to expand...
 
Jen H said:
Dave I am a newbie. Just curious what the advantage is? Maybe I am using the preheated oven mentality which might not translate to smoking.
Click to expand...

Jen,

A couple of things.

1. It's generally easier to catch the temperature on the way up and slow it down than it is to let it get too hot and try to bring it back down.

2. If you're taking a large mass of cold meat (i.e. 2 pork shoulders) right out of the fridge and placing them on the smoker, your temps are going to drop. Even if you get the smoker to temp before you put the meat on. Sure it'll recover, but it might take more vent adjustments than if you just put the meat on while the temp is rising.

That said, there's nothing wrong with letting your cooker come up to temp before adding your meat. Some like to do that to make sure that the fire is burning clean. Some don't wait because they are just too lazy to wait for the temps to settle. I've done it both ways. Usually I'll light up my WSM and let the temp get to about 200 or 225 (assuming I'm shooting for 250 at the dome) then put my meat on. At that point I'll start adjusting the vents to 50% and watch as the temp settles out.

My last cook however, I used 100% previously cooked coals (including some that were used in my OTS for steaks the night before). That time I didn't add any smoke wood and waited until the initial "charcoal smoke" subsided. I think I adjusted my vents to hold my temp steady, but by the time my meat went on the smoker it was at cooking temp.

Bottom line, experiment until you find what suits you. Each way has its own merits and you'll find folks who swear by both methods. At the end of the day you're the cook, and it's what you want to do. As long as you have fun while you're doing it!
 
So the inaugural smoke is in the books. All and all things went very well. I did have one pretty good scare at the beginning though.

I had it going with the two chickens on the top rack, but couldn't get the temp past 110. It was running for about 45 minutes and I was starting to panic. I even put more coals in the chimney and then added them to the smoker.

Still nothing, no change in temperature. I was seconds away from taking the lid off and pulling everything off when I figured it out. I was using the beer can chicken stands that you can buy all over the place and that made my chickens a little taller. This is significant only because the chicken was now tall enough that it was in contact with the thermometer in the lid of the WSM. All that I had to do was give the lid a quarter turn.

Now that the probe was away from the birds the temp read correctly which was 245. Made a couple minor adjustments and it was clear sailing after that.

The chicken was awesome, planning on ribs tomorrow. Thanks for all the help, much appreciated!
 
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Welcome to the learning curve. lol Glad the cook went ok for ya, but in your original post you were worried about the 350+ temps. Question - if you were to cook chicken in the oven, what temp would you feel comfortable with? Maybe 350??? Think of the WSM as a smokey outdoor oven. Yeah, low & slow is the common thinking, but high heat works just as well. Nothing better than doing a Thanksgiving turkey at oven temps outdoors in the WSM while leaving the indoor oven for the side dishes..

Looking forward to your rib cook. :D
 
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