So had a pork shoulder to do today for pulled pork for dinner tomorrow. As a side note I've started brining pork prior to bbq more often lately. This is the first brined shoulder I've done, hoping for the best. Anyhow I fire up the 18" WSM, Minion-style of course, and the WSM shoots up to 350F at the lid. This is with 90 percent Kingsford blue. I used about 20-30 coals of Kingston Competition to start it all. No water in the pan as I wanted to try this one dry. Over the next hour I get it to where all three dampers are closed as I'm trying to get the temp down. After three hours the WSM is hovering around 350-360 deg - it really never moved much from that 350 mark until about the three hour mark where it started going up again.
So I resort to water in the pan - no biggie. I manage to get the temp down to 275 with the water. It's now four and a half hours after I added water and the meat (probably 8 lbs or so) and it's still at 275 at the lid. Definitely higher than I wanted, but very stable. I'm convincing myself the grate temp is probably closer to 250-260 so I'm good.
This WSM is the one I mention in my sig - so it's not new, and I'm not new to it. Can't believe I ran into temp issues with it today. It's been so well behaved. Just goes to show you even reliable equipment and methods can be temperamental on occasion. In an attempt to appease the WSM gods I just got off with Weber customer support. Ordered new dampers for the bottom bowl since that is likely the least sealed spot on the WSM. After being blown over a few times over the years at least two of the three are likely suspects for leaking air into the chamber.
So I resort to water in the pan - no biggie. I manage to get the temp down to 275 with the water. It's now four and a half hours after I added water and the meat (probably 8 lbs or so) and it's still at 275 at the lid. Definitely higher than I wanted, but very stable. I'm convincing myself the grate temp is probably closer to 250-260 so I'm good.
This WSM is the one I mention in my sig - so it's not new, and I'm not new to it. Can't believe I ran into temp issues with it today. It's been so well behaved. Just goes to show you even reliable equipment and methods can be temperamental on occasion. In an attempt to appease the WSM gods I just got off with Weber customer support. Ordered new dampers for the bottom bowl since that is likely the least sealed spot on the WSM. After being blown over a few times over the years at least two of the three are likely suspects for leaking air into the chamber.