AngelFallon
New member
So I spent nearly my whole weekend with my new WSM! And other than a few issues I think that things went relatively well!
On Saturday I loaded up the grill and was doing my own spin on the minion style with the charcoal.
I started with a little charcoal and added my oak
I then added more charcoal and dumped the chimney in the center...
Now I forgot to take as many photos as I had planned .. and I didnt take notes like I thought I would either
But I started with a 14.5# turkey, the label said it had up to 8% of a "solution" in it so I did not brine it. I just added a bit of olive oil and then some salt and pepper and tossed it on the grill at ~325dF.
I then ran into my first issue, I had trouble getting the temp to go down! Within the first hour I had all the vents closed and it was still in the low 300dF range and the turkey was looking dry so I kept spritzing it with apple cider vinegar in hopes of salvaging it. Eventually the temp started dropping off on its own. and about 2-3hrs into the cook I pulled the turkey and put it into an metal tray and sliced up a few sticks of butter and placed them on top of the turkey and covered it with foil and tossed it back on the grill and started checking internal temps at the breast and thigh. After another 2-3 hours the temps finally got up to 167dF so I pulled the turkey off and let it rest until it was cool enough to break down.
I totally forgot about taking pictures until I had already broken it down but the color looked good and after I added the butter the moisture started looking a lot better and I was really happy with the flavor
So after the turkey on Saturday I felt confident enough to try something a little harder.. I got up early and went to load the charcoal up and found nearly half of what I had put in the day before was still in there. They looked like mostly half burned bricks and same small charred pieces of wood. So I knocked off all the ash and then loaded the rest of the charcoal and wood just like I had done the day prior. Now it was much colder Sunday morning than it was on Saturday and I had a heck of a time getting the temp UP to where I wanted it to be (250dF) and keeping it there. After an hour or so I got it up there and dropped the brisket in on the lower rack. I had previously trimmed the 10# packer brisket and gave it a light coating of olive oil and then I salt and peppered it pretty generously.
After placing the brisket on the grill I had to fight to get the temp back up and after an hour of it hovering around 190-200dF I decided to fire up another chimney and add some more charcoal. Which didn't seem to help right away after another hour or so it was around the right temp.
At this point I knew the brisket was going to be a while still. So I pulled out a few racks of ribs and trimmed them up. I seasoned them with some off the shelf rub and tossed them on to the top shelf of the WSM and the temp bottomed out again around 180-190ish. I stirred the coals some and left all the vents closed and it eventually started coming back up and hovered around 230 then after a couple hours it was finally back up to ~250dF.
At this point the brisket has been on about 6 hours and was actually looking pretty good and the ribs had been on about 2.5hrs. So to speed things up I pulled everything off and wrapped the brisket in foil and tossed it back on the grill. I spritzed the ribs with some apple cider vinegar and a 50/50 mix of bbq sauce and water and then i tossed those back on and had the same trouble with the temp dropping below 200dF and it taking much too long for it to come back up. It did eventually and maybe 3 hours later the brisket was right at 205dF so we pulled everything off.
We ate some of the ribs and everything looked and tasted pretty good! After a couple hours we cut into the brisket and it was good as well .. I think it may have still been slightly under cooked but not by much.
So now if I can just get a better handle on reaching and maintaining the temps I think we will be all set for a nice long summer of smoked meats!!
On Saturday I loaded up the grill and was doing my own spin on the minion style with the charcoal.
I started with a little charcoal and added my oak
I then added more charcoal and dumped the chimney in the center...
Now I forgot to take as many photos as I had planned .. and I didnt take notes like I thought I would either
But I started with a 14.5# turkey, the label said it had up to 8% of a "solution" in it so I did not brine it. I just added a bit of olive oil and then some salt and pepper and tossed it on the grill at ~325dF.
I then ran into my first issue, I had trouble getting the temp to go down! Within the first hour I had all the vents closed and it was still in the low 300dF range and the turkey was looking dry so I kept spritzing it with apple cider vinegar in hopes of salvaging it. Eventually the temp started dropping off on its own. and about 2-3hrs into the cook I pulled the turkey and put it into an metal tray and sliced up a few sticks of butter and placed them on top of the turkey and covered it with foil and tossed it back on the grill and started checking internal temps at the breast and thigh. After another 2-3 hours the temps finally got up to 167dF so I pulled the turkey off and let it rest until it was cool enough to break down.
I totally forgot about taking pictures until I had already broken it down but the color looked good and after I added the butter the moisture started looking a lot better and I was really happy with the flavor
So after the turkey on Saturday I felt confident enough to try something a little harder.. I got up early and went to load the charcoal up and found nearly half of what I had put in the day before was still in there. They looked like mostly half burned bricks and same small charred pieces of wood. So I knocked off all the ash and then loaded the rest of the charcoal and wood just like I had done the day prior. Now it was much colder Sunday morning than it was on Saturday and I had a heck of a time getting the temp UP to where I wanted it to be (250dF) and keeping it there. After an hour or so I got it up there and dropped the brisket in on the lower rack. I had previously trimmed the 10# packer brisket and gave it a light coating of olive oil and then I salt and peppered it pretty generously.
After placing the brisket on the grill I had to fight to get the temp back up and after an hour of it hovering around 190-200dF I decided to fire up another chimney and add some more charcoal. Which didn't seem to help right away after another hour or so it was around the right temp.
At this point I knew the brisket was going to be a while still. So I pulled out a few racks of ribs and trimmed them up. I seasoned them with some off the shelf rub and tossed them on to the top shelf of the WSM and the temp bottomed out again around 180-190ish. I stirred the coals some and left all the vents closed and it eventually started coming back up and hovered around 230 then after a couple hours it was finally back up to ~250dF.
At this point the brisket has been on about 6 hours and was actually looking pretty good and the ribs had been on about 2.5hrs. So to speed things up I pulled everything off and wrapped the brisket in foil and tossed it back on the grill. I spritzed the ribs with some apple cider vinegar and a 50/50 mix of bbq sauce and water and then i tossed those back on and had the same trouble with the temp dropping below 200dF and it taking much too long for it to come back up. It did eventually and maybe 3 hours later the brisket was right at 205dF so we pulled everything off.
We ate some of the ribs and everything looked and tasted pretty good! After a couple hours we cut into the brisket and it was good as well .. I think it may have still been slightly under cooked but not by much.
So now if I can just get a better handle on reaching and maintaining the temps I think we will be all set for a nice long summer of smoked meats!!
But hey, it's all part of the fun. As you get a few more smokes under your belt, playing with the temps will get a lot easier. And none easier than when you reach the point of knowing you don't have to mess with the vents. You'll only understand that last sentence once you reach that point, but it'll come.
