How much meat can you fit in the WSM?


 
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Jim Babek

TVWBB Pro
I havent gotten my WSM yet but am curious just how much I will be able to fit onto the thing. Im looking towards picnics once summer gets here...if it ever gets here.

Im thinking ribs on the top rack (spares) and beer can chickens on the bottom. Maybe some fresh kielbasa if it will fit.

Let me know just how much you've had on at once, how they were placed (flat, rolled or in racks) and do any adjustments need to be made with this much food on the cooker.
 
There was a picture posted a while back showing a rib rack. I believe it was Jim Minion or Konrad Haskins who showed us how they fit 9 half-racks of spares on each grate.

Keep in ind you can cook the chicken ahead of time and finish/reheat them on a grill right before they're served. This way you could fit 9 full racks of spares in your little WSM. Now that's a lot of food!
 
The most I've ever done in the WSM is 6 slabs of spares, although now that I have 2 rib racks from cabelas.com, I know that I could safely do 7. I could put more by leaning some on the sides and on top, but I don't like for any of the slabs to touch each other.

The rack from Cabela's: http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jhtml?id=0005860510813a&navAction=push&navCount=4&indexId=&podId=0005860&catalogCode=UD&parentId=&parentType=&rid=&_DA RGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fcatalog%2Fitem-link.jhtml_A&_DAV=search&hasJS=true
 
I just grabbed 2 of those same rib racks at Home Depot for about $8 each. So if anyone is interested in them you can check them out before you buy. After using them I did find I liked them much more than rolling my ribs as I had always done.
Jamie
 
I've been able to do 8 rolled racks - 4 on each grate. Using the Char-Broil rib racks from HD, I was able to fit 9 half-racks on the bottom grate and 11 on the top.
 
Looks like the racks are the way to go. I was just under the impression most werent fans of them since you get more of the "burt end pieces" I thought the goal was burning bad...smoked good...
 
I've never had any issues at all with burning ewnds with the smoker and rib racks. In fact, with less surface area exposed directly to the heat, I would imagine the opposite were true...
 
John L......

You will have MORE burnt ends if you don't cut the racks in half! A rack of ribs is between 20-22" long...the pit itself is only 17 1/2" wide and some of that is outside the water pan diameter. This will result in the heat blasting up from the sides burning both ends.

I have been using racks for years and it is really the perfect solution to avoid burning the ends.

Jim B.....

Follow this link to my description of how I do it. It's about halfway down the page.
How many ribs????
 
Hey John...

That link doesn't seem to work for me....sounds interesting!

I agree that stacking that full is not ideal, but when I cater for more than 30 people I need to do that to get them all fed. I'm not really set-up to cook the day before, store and then re-heat on site.
 
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