First try one the new 22" WSM


 
W

william benoit

New member
well I put two whole 2.2kg chickens on the WSM. rub both down with extra virgin olive oil and a Mepmphis style rub, then basted with a bit of pure apple juice. used a bit of hickory and some sugar maple wood, oh and somked some baked beans too. I did have a bit of a hard time to regulate the temp, but still was between 250 and 275, just opening and closeing the vents a bit. Chicken and bake beans were VERY GOOD :) would like some info how to do a over night cook with the WSM, so I would not have to stay up all night to watch it.
 
Do a butt for your first overnight. You won't be able to sleep even though you might try. You'll be worried about the smoker. Hard to hurt a big old butt, so throw it on and let it go and try not to check on it every 10 minutes. You won't be able to, but try. After seeing how to set the smoker and gaining confidence that it will actually work, next time you might get some sleep.
 
I recommend getting some cooks in using different configurations so you can learn to maintain temps for a long time prior to an overnighter. Find out what works for you to get your temps stable. There are lots of ideas here to help you with that. Then go for your overnighter. I like what J Hoke says about a butt for the first overnighter.
 
To get to the point where you're going overnight, you want to work towards touching the controls less and less. Make some ribs and once everything's stable walk away for two hours and see what happens. Or at least commit to looking at the temps but not touching the vents. You might be surprised to what extent the temps will drift one way and then back another even if you don't touch anything.

Once you get to the point where you can keep the smoker within some acceptable limits for say, three hours at a stretch you can try an overnight cook where you set your alarm for every two hours and run out and verify everything's OK and then run back into bed. Then you can start stretching out that alarm time until you're just getting up once at 3:00am. I don't see any point in pushing it past that - after a while you'll be able to check the smoker and get back to bed without even remembering it.

And yeah, butts can put up with a lot of abuse, so they're good for this stuff.

One last thought... if you're going to be leaving the smoker unattended for any length of time think about the worst case scenario. You can find rare horror stories of some dog knocking the smoker over to get at the meat or whatever. If you're cooking on a wooden deck that's next to your wood sided house or something... think that through, OK?
 
They say a new WSM do not require seasoning. That may be true but they need to be "Gunked Up" with greasy smoke! That will take the shine off the inside, close up a gap or two and also help you to maintain more even temps. They tend to run hot when new until that happens. A butt will help solve that problem.
 
That's true that they get a little easier to run when they're broken in, even if you know what you're doing. So between it getting better and you getting better after say, a dozen hours of cooking it'll be smoother sailing. If you want to do that with 1 butt cook or 3 rib cooks is up to you. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top