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Guest
Guest
Tried out my new WSM last week. We had chicken parts on the menu for Sunday dinner (thighs and legs). After reading some of the posts here I figured that 2 hours would be about right for cooking. Dinner was at seven so I decided to light a fire several hours early and learn how to control the temps before I put the meat on the fire.
I learned two very important lessons.
Lesson 1.
When you live in a town where every tree leans the way the wind blows it is important how the WSM is located. It took about an hour to figure out that not only does one bottom vent facing the wind stay closed, the top vent has to be on the down wind side of the cooker. Once I did this I was able to control the temperature until I experienced lesson two.
Lesson 2.
My patio has a fair amount of fall for drainage. With the WSM door on the uphill side the water pan downhill side is about ?? lower. When it was time to put the chicken on, I loaded the bottom grill and closed up the top. Then I decided to try adding water just to see how this works. The plastic watering can worked well but I did not think about the back side of the pan being lower than the front. I added water until it was about ?? from the rim and closed the door. After an hour with all the vents open I was only able to reach 200?. I opened the door and saw the center of the coals were wet and out. A full starter can of lit coals scattered on the perimeter finally had the chicken cooking again.
So, 2 hour chicken only took about 4 hours but it tasted good. This week it?s country ribs and a pan of baked beans.
The adventure continues.
Mike /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
I learned two very important lessons.
Lesson 1.
When you live in a town where every tree leans the way the wind blows it is important how the WSM is located. It took about an hour to figure out that not only does one bottom vent facing the wind stay closed, the top vent has to be on the down wind side of the cooker. Once I did this I was able to control the temperature until I experienced lesson two.
Lesson 2.
My patio has a fair amount of fall for drainage. With the WSM door on the uphill side the water pan downhill side is about ?? lower. When it was time to put the chicken on, I loaded the bottom grill and closed up the top. Then I decided to try adding water just to see how this works. The plastic watering can worked well but I did not think about the back side of the pan being lower than the front. I added water until it was about ?? from the rim and closed the door. After an hour with all the vents open I was only able to reach 200?. I opened the door and saw the center of the coals were wet and out. A full starter can of lit coals scattered on the perimeter finally had the chicken cooking again.
So, 2 hour chicken only took about 4 hours but it tasted good. This week it?s country ribs and a pan of baked beans.
The adventure continues.
Mike /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
