Foil on BOTTOM of water bowl? And other questions...


 
B

Brian Dixon

New member
As a brand new owner of a shiny new black cadill... I mean WSM, I've been reading up on a few topics ...too many. One of them is the foil put on the water bowl. Made sense to read about foiling the inside of the bowl to ease clean-up efforts. Then I read about (and experienced) how a tiny leak that lets liquid get under the foil can (will) result in instant steam generation and how the steam goes up the side of the bowl and follows the lip over the side, and then falls to the coals below ...which seems like a bad idea if you want the charcoal to keep burning. Maybe it's a minor issue. Dunno.

I also saw in a YouTube video how one guy foils the OUTSIDE of the water bowl ...and in one of the pork butt photos on the virtual weber bullet website, I think I can see a bowl that has no foil on the inside but DOES have foil on the outside ...say what? See http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/porkbuttselect_photos/porkbuttselect10-1024.jpg

Two questions:

1. Why not just foil the inside of the bowl up to the lip but don't wrap it over ...seems like leaks would result in steam going straight up rather than over the side? Seems odd that I haven't seen this idea mentioned anywhere.

2. Why do some people foil the bottom of the bowl? It would just keep soot (actually just smoke residue) off the bowl, right? For the soot, I just wash and rinse, not trying to clean things down to the original paint ...are some people really that worried about soot? Or is there a reason for this practice that I'm not catching on to.

Thx,
Brian
 
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1)Don't worry about "leaks" re: inside the bowl. A little moisture (if any!) won't harm or hinder anything.

2)anal--so it might keep soot off the bottom of the bowl. Who cares? Anybody you know going to be snooping around inside there? Mine is so thick, it looks like someone slapped hunks of road tar on it. No worries.
 
Len Dennis said:
1)Don't worry about "leaks" re: inside the bowl. A little moisture (if any!) won't harm or hinder anything.

2)anal--so it might keep soot off the bottom of the bowl. Who cares? Anybody you know going to be snooping around inside there? Mine is so thick, it looks like someone slapped hunks of road tar on it. No worries.
Click to expand...

1. OK...
2. Figures... Seems like foiling the outside takes about as much time as a quick wash...

Brian
 
I've only foiled the inside of the bowl when cooking with no water in the pan. With water, the stuff that drips into the pan doesn't really get cooked on and is easy enough to clean. For a dry pan, the foil makes for easy cleanup and no chance of dripping grease flaring up on a hot pan, but no water means no leaks.

As for the bottom of the water pan, I have a 22.5" WSM and can't wrap it with 1 sheet of wide foil, so I don't wrap it at all.
 
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I think I won't worry about foil on the bottom, and will try going without foiling the inside once when using water to see how much mess it makes. I suspect I will foil the inside always ....

Thanks!

Brian
 
Sounds like your mind is made up Brian, but I'm another one who foils the inside (I don't use water) and outside of the bowl.
 
Mike Willis said:
Sounds like your mind is made up Brian, but I'm another one who foils the inside (I don't use water) and outside of the bowl.
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...Maybe. I could very well change my mind! Right now, I've run one hot dry empty 'seasoning' run and another 'seasoning' run with water in water bowl (inside foil only) and a couple of chunks of greasy freezer burned meat (not much of a sacrifice) from the chest freezer. We're going to put a couple of chickens in it today and I plan on foiling the inside of the bowl alone ...and will monitor what happens inside and outside. I'm a newb... a happy one, but very inexperienced with WSMs (somewhat obviously!)

Brian
 
I've always just foiled the inside of the bowl. I think any residue form the fire on the bottom of the bowl is not an issue, at least for me. I think it just comes Dow to personal preference. I have recently gone to using a clay saucer in place of the waterpan.
 
I've pretty much jumped on the no water train, and I foil the inside of the pan only. Clean up of the grease is way easier now!
 
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