Is the Charcoal Rim in my WMS necessary?


 
H

Howard V

TVWBB Member
I did a pork butt for 12 hours this past weekend.....it was an overnight from 11pm to 11am. I woke up at 8am to check the meat and noticed temp dropped down to 150lb and I only had a few (4-5) charcoal left. I had to toss in a batch of lit charcoal to get it back up to 250. I was really disappointed that it drop down in only 8 hr after hearing folks had theirs going for 10-12 hrs. I used the minion method with a coffee can with Kingsford Competition Brisquets from Costco. I filled it up all the way to the top rim when I started.

Should I get a bigger charcoal rim or go "no-rim" to get a wider radius of charcoals? What is the purpose of the rim -- any safety issue if go without one? I am new to charcoal and WMS so I am not sure. I am sure I can fit in much more charcoal with the rim and get a longer cook going.
 
Howard, not sure what happened here, I use the rim and I've had cooks go for 12 hours and could have went 14 hours. Lot's a variables to the process, when I filled my water pan I used hot water, I had taken the butt out of the fridge an hour before going on the pit. The weather when I did my cook was calm, no wind and the outside temperature dropped about 15 degrees. I had also used Trader Joe's charcoal. You will get plenty of good advice from guys who know a lot more than me, but I would encourage you to keep trying.
 
I've found with mine it's often a matter of stirring the fire to get the accumulated ash to unclog the grate....then the temp will recover and the fire will go good another few hours. And this is usually a good time to pop in a few hunks of unlit charcoal to supplement the fire.
Note: if the meat is uncovered on the grate , remove it before you do this. :wsm:
 
Good point Frank, I have taken a rubber mallet and lightly tapped the legs of my WSM to knock the ash down.
 
Howard V said:
I did a pork butt for 12 hours this past weekend.....it was an overnight from 11pm to 11am. I woke up at 8am to check the meat and noticed temp dropped down to 150lb and I only had a few (4-5) charcoal left. I had to toss in a batch of lit charcoal to get it back up to 250. I was really disappointed that it drop down in only 8 hr after hearing folks had theirs going for 10-12 hrs. I used the minion method with a coffee can with Kingsford Competition Brisquets from Costco. I filled it up all the way to the top rim when I started.

Should I get a bigger charcoal rim or go "no-rim" to get a wider radius of charcoals? What is the purpose of the rim -- any safety issue if go without one? I am new to charcoal and WMS so I am not sure. I am sure I can fit in much more charcoal with the rim and get a longer cook going.
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How full was full? Are the briquettes heaped on top of the rim, or are they level with the rim? That extra 10-12 briquettes you could get on top might make the difference to how long your smoker goes.

The reason I say this is because in perfectly calm conditions I ran out of fuel around the 10 1/2 hour mark. I feel like I could have filled it a little more and it would've made a difference.

Also, I ran out of briquettes so the top 1/4 was filled with lump. I would have gladly exchanged the supposed superior burning quality of the lump for the better space optimization of the Briquettes.








My next cook will have briquettes right to the top, near overflowing because I know for a fact it will get me 12 hours.
 
By "Rim" I assume you mean ring, if so then yes it does serve a purpose, it helps keep the charcoal tight to reduce surface area which is why it burns slower, no ring your charcoal will spread out increasing the amount of surface exposed to air which causes the fire to burn faster and hotter,
 
Howard, here is a picture of my setup that burned at 250 for 14 hours, again I used Trader Joe's charcoal which some people like and some people don't.

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James, I have mine similar to yours....filled up with rim with 3-4 hunks of wood around. I think I might do similar next but will pour more brisquets on top of the wood to get a higher pile of charcoal. If this continues where I am unable to get a longer cook time during overnight, I am thinking about investing in an automated temp control system (Party Q or PitMaster) device. It's suppose to regulate temps well while minimizing charcoal burn rate.
 
Another factor is how gunked up your WSM is. I noticed that the more use my WSM got the longer and more controlled the cooks became.
 
Howard V said:
James, I have mine similar to yours....filled up with rim with 3-4 hunks of wood around. I think I might do similar next but will pour more brisquets on top of the wood to get a higher pile of charcoal. If this continues where I am unable to get a longer cook time during overnight, I am thinking about investing in an automated temp control system (Party Q or PitMaster) device. It's suppose to regulate temps well while minimizing charcoal burn rate.
Click to expand...

Howard, maybe I can save you some time and money here and maybe not. I purchased my WSM this spring after going all last summer with a performer and wanting to do bigger and longer cooks. I also purchased a DigiQ Pitmaster IQ 110. Currently I'm not happy with my DigiQ and found that my WSM would hold temp for 14 hours on its own and not adding fuel at any time during the cook. I put the butt on at 10 at night and went to bed, again I did not use my DigiQ. I checked my Maverick 732 a couple of times during the night and the WSM was steady as a rock 240 - 250. I'm not sure if I wasted money on a DigiQ or not, but I'm saving the DigiQ for cooks in the fall/winter when temps in my area get to a low of 20s. I would suggest holding off on the DigiQ until you try another cook and read other advice here on the forum. Keep me/us posted.
 
Thanks for sharing your experience, James. Will try a few more long overnight cooks (pork butt and briskets) before making a final decision.

Would be nice to continue smoking deep in the winter where temps will be in 20s and 30s. I only had my WMS for a few months in the summer. I have not experience a winter cook out.
 
Howard I am fairly new to the WSM 22.5 also. Though it seems like in a short time we have become very close. Anyhow I made some changes to mine which definetly improved it for me. I added handles to the lower grate, I installed a second thermometer on the grate level, big difference in the dome and grate temps. I only go by grate temps now.
But the biggest change I made after getting it seasoned well with several cooks is I changed out the door to one of the Cajun Bandit Stainless jobs. It seals a lot better than the factory version. The one that came on mine had to be tweaked a decent amount to stop pouring smoke out through the top and taking air in which is just what you don't want to happen.
Once I did that it made a huge difference in how easy it was to control the temps up or down.
One other thing I noticed is you can get fooled by the thermometer for the first hour or so thinking you are at a good temp when in reality what was happening to me is the chunks of wood were also burning increasing heat, once they burned down some then the temps would drop.
So now I soak my wood for an hour or two before I put it in, I also put it along the outside edge of the basket, and I bury one or two pieces in the coals on the bottom so they ignite a little later.
These things made a difference for me, I now control it to where I want and rarely does it move. For an all nighter I have the dome vent facing away from the breeze and the bottom vent facing the prevailing breeze, even slight, closed completely. And the other two open an 1/8" for a low and slow.
Good luck on your next cook, hope this helps.
 
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I have a 18.5" and when I do a long cook I fill it up to the top of the charcoal ring as full as I can get (Minion method). One trick I learned with using water in the pan is to add boiling hot water. That way I don't was a lot of time and energy heating up the water. I get cooks that will last 10-12hrs. I use Kingsford blue bag, and it holds temp like a rock.
 
I did first overnight brisket about 9 lbs trimmed this weekend.... Full chamber of coals... Probly 25-30 recycled lit briq in chimney.. Foiled clay saucer on top of water pan....

Temps ran consistently high... 260-280.... Coals lasted about 15 hours... At end temps were about 200 ish
I was happy with those results
 
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