First smoke on my new WSM


 
J

Josh O'Donn

TVWBB Member
Whelp, today was my first official cook on my new 22.5 WSM. I picked up 3 slabs of loin backs and 2 small butts.... For my first cook I am very happy with how everything went, other than the fact that the 4# butts took almost 9 hours to cook and my ribs were just slightly undercooked as well. Not sure why things took so long, I had my Maverick probe on the top grate between the 2 butts and was able to maintain between 235 an 250 no problem. I also brewed up a partigyle batch of homebrew while I was smoking... In case you're wondering, a partigyle brew results in two distinct beers from one batch of grains... The high-gravity (high sugar) first runnings are the first batch, and then the grains are washed with another batch of water, and those lower gravity second runnings make the second batch. First batch will be much higher alcohol than the second batch. Needless to say things got pretty chaotic, I will probably not smoke and brew a partigyle again... At one point I was trying to get rub on the ribs, cool the 1st runnings after completing the boil, and watching the 2nd runnings to prevent a boil over.

OH, and in case you are wondering, the aroma of beer brewing mixed with smoking meat is incredible.

Here are some photos:

This was the view from my garage looking out... 2 batches of beer boiling away and the WSM smoking away. Several neighbors invited themselves over for dinner, unfortunately for them I didn't reciprocate haha



I forgot to take photos of the ribs... Here are the finished butts pre-pulling



And here is a big bowl of deliciousness



I will also be trying a sauce experiment tomorrow night... I took a half gallon of the 1st runnings from my homebrew and reduced it down to 2 cups... I am going to use this in place of molasses... The final reduced product is not as thick as molasses, but it is wonderfully sweet and has awesome roasty notes that I think will be really good in a sauce. I will post back the sauce results in a day or two!
 
I never heard of a partigyle brew, sounds pretty interesting. It sure sounds like a good way to use up your time while your waiting for that great looking pulled pork to finish!
 
John Solak said:
I never heard of a partigyle brew, sounds pretty interesting. It sure sounds like a good way to use up your time while your waiting for that great looking pulled pork to finish!
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Very very few commercial brewers brew this way, from a cost perspective it's not the most efficient, but at the homebrew scale the cost difference is negligible, and it allows me to have 5 gallons each of 2 different beers instead of 10 gallons of one beer. I don't get to brew very often so I try to maximize my production when I get the opportunity. The partigyle was more common back in the Middle Ages amongst trappist brewers, the high alcohol first runnings went to the highest ranking monks, the lower alcohol second ranking went to the common monks, and often times a third run of a very low alcohol beer was made and this went to the peasants/servants. Slightly off topic here LOL but needless to say, brewing and smoking go well together!
 
From one fellow home brewer to another - nice brew day cook! What was the brew? How do you like using the hop bag? I made one but haven't used it yet.
 
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Dwain Pannell said:
From one fellow home brewer to another - nice brew day cook! What was the brew? How do you like using the hop bag? I made one but haven't used it yet.
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Thanks, it was a busy day but lots of fun as well. The mash was for an imperial porter that I'm going age on vanilla beans and add cold-brewed coffee to (going for something similar to Ballast Point Victory at Sea). The second runnings is just a standard american brown ale. This was my first time using the hop spider, I just put it together last week. It was pretty handy, although it did take some wrangling to drain all the wort out of the bag before cooling, it was holding almost a full gallon of wort when I went to pull it out... The hops eventually lined (and clogged) the entire area of the bag that was submersed, so I had to hold the spider up with one hand and with a silicone glove on the other 'tip' the bag so that wort would flow out the upper unclogged portion of the bag. I imagine the bags could be reused but I didn't even try, it was a big mess and they are relatively cheap. It was nice not having to try to strain out the hops while transferring to my carboy though. All in all, I think it's a good addition.
 
You're off to a great start. Maybe next cook you could let the temp rise into the 275 range. Speed up your process a little .
 
Nice looking cook! By "first official cook," did you mean that you had used the smoker before in a "break-in" kind of way?
 
Wil A said:
Nice looking cook! By "first official cook," did you mean that you had used the smoker before in a "break-in" kind of way?
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Thank, yeah I did two break-in burns... I know it's not necessary but I'm somewhat anal and always do a high heat burn-in when I get a new cooking vessel, and then I did a second test burn with a big slab of bacon just to get a feel for temperature control and to grease it up a bit.
 
Very nice looking setup Josh! I can only imagine the smell of brewing beer and smokey bbq goodness. My brain says awesome! The butts look good! Looks like you didn't go the texas crutch route and foil? Just let them ride the whole time? My last few cooks I haven't foiled and i'm starting to like going that route. Regardless looks great for the 1st official cook in the new WSM!
 
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