How to keep Bullet hot?


 
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Daniel Israel

TVWBB Member
Hi everyone,

I've been practicing with my weber bullet. I have one important question.

How do I keep the temperature from drastically dropping when I open the smoker to turn the meat?

My smoker temp drops 30 degrees sometimes!

Any help is appreciated. thanks!
 
Under normal circumstances, the temp should rebound back to where it was within a few minutes after you close it up again. Best to be prepared in advance of opening up to flip-turn-- have spots laid out where to put lid, top grate, if necessary, etc, so you can minimize the time the cooker is open.
 
I'm having IMMENSE trouble with this. I had it at 250 running steady. Then I opened it, spritzed the meat and turned them (chickens) and put it back on. Then I added hot water to the water bowl. It's now at 220 a half hour later after having it open about 45 seconds. It's rising, but VERY slowly.
 
I think that by adding the water (even though it's hot) will also take additional energy, thus the overall temp might take some extra time getting back.

Question: When did you baste? Is it possible your fuel is not as "potent" as in the begining? When I take the lid off it only takes 2 minutes to get back up to temp. Open all your bottem vents and you should see the temps fly.
 
Daniel,

I've never had to add water when cooking chicken, never found it to evaporate that much in 6 hours or less... I might add water to COOL down the smoker, but not to heat it up...
 
Daniel,

Here are a couple of tips that have helped me keep temps regulated when tending the WSM.

First, keep the lid level when you remove it. This helps to keep the heat trapped in the dome.

Do not add water unless you need to. Chicken is generally a short cook so you shouldn't need to add water. In fact, you shouldn't need water at all for chicken, but that's a different matter.

Similarly, add only as much water as you need. There's no need to fill the pan to the brim when there's only an hour left to cook. OTOH, fill the pan at bedtime when you're doing an overnighter. Also, I usually add water through the access hatch between bastings. This helps avoid heat loss.

Plan ahead. Try to understand where the temp is headed. To me, that's as important as the current temperature. If you're going to do something that will cause heat loss, consider running the temperature up a little before. Be prepared to watch temps after and make adjustment accordingly.

Last of all, feel free to make adjustments to the vents. Conditions change: wind, sunlight, coals burn down, etc. I find that adjustments take about 10-15 minutes to be noticeable. Temps usually recover with 10-15 minutes afer removing the lid. Watch your thermometer and make adjustments if needed.

Tony
 
Add a good amount of lighter fluid to the water pan. You'll be smoking at 450* in no time /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tom:
[qb] Add a good amount of lighter fluid to the water pan. You'll be smoking at 450* in no time /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif [/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>About 20 years ago I was listening to a local call-in show dealing with home improvement. Someone called in wanting to know, "What's the big deal with these Weber grills." They thought the results were consistently bad, to the point where they were getting ill. Turns out that every time the "flame died down" they added "some more of that liquid". Can you imagine?

I give the host credit for not laughing once during the call!
 
It was a friggin nightmare!

I was up to 250, running smooth. I basted and turned the chickens, then added some water (which I now know is not a good idea...). I saw the temp had dropped, so I opened all the vents and it stuck at 220.

After investigating, I added some more charcoal and shook up what was in there (to get rid of the ash) and it went up, but never went over 235, all the time with ALL the vents all the way open!

Man, I need to practice more... If I have this much trouble with chicken, what's going to happen when I try bigger things (briskets, butts, etc)
 
Howdy....


If the temps rise slowly or not at all, just take the access door out for 2-3 minutes and the put it back in.
The charcoal usually gets a boost because of the high airflow and when you close the door the heat is trapped and rises quickly.

Most important thing is to mount the door correctly.

My door fell out a few weeks ago when i was "preheating" the WSM.
I just dumped a chimney of lit lump onto the full unlit charcoal ring, set the thing together and went in the kitchen to prepare the meat.
Went out half an our later (thinking it might have reached 230-250 F as usual) and found the door beneath the WSM, all the lump was fully lit and the dome temperature was 700 F. /infopop/emoticons/icon_redface.gif
Boy, i swear if it would have been dark, the whole bullet would have been glowing.


Don Marco
Germany
 
I think the problem with the slow recovery of your temp was the adding of the Hot Water. Lets say you had 1 quart left in the pan and it was running 190 degrees. You add hot tapwater, 3 quarts to bring it up to the brim. Hot tapwater is generally no more than 115 or so, maybe 120. Lets do a simple average, 4 quarts, 1 at 190, 3 at 120. So thats 190+120+120+120/4 = 137.5 degrees. Is this an oversimplification? YES. But you probably get the point. You severly cooled the waterpan, and the temp of the smoker will go up slowly at the pan heats up.

2 fixes, 1 Boil the water (or close to it), then add that (*very* carefully), or 2, do what I do, get a Waterpan from a Brinkmann Gourmet Charcoal water smoker. It fits perfectly and holds 2 gallons. During a 15 hour Boston Butt I only had to refill once.

Chris II
 
I think Chris meant to say get a charcoal pan from a brinkman, and use it as the water pan for the WSM. I have nevr even used the water pan that came with my WSM, I have used the Brinkman charcoal pan from day one. I have only had to add water once, and that was during an all night smoke.
 
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