Is this a good idea or not?

[David Ward]

Ok, first let me say more often than not, I'm only using the WSM to cook for myself, the wife and occasionally the daughters boyfriend (daughter is not overly fond of anything with rub or sauce on it - go figure. But hey, that's more for me!!!). That being said 90% of the time I don't put anything on the lower rack and usually do not even put it in the smoker.

Today I was cleaning out the WSM preping for my first BRITU smoke and got an idea (oh, here comes trouble).

I have the brinkman pan for a water pan and have been using the stock WSM water pan for cooks with no water and foil only to catch the dripings.

Is there any reason *NOT* to use a foiled ECB charcoal pan for the water pan, then put the lower rack in and set a foiled WSM water pan in on top of the lower rack just to catch the drippings and keep the ECB pan from getting so icky with greasy water?

Seems to me it would work fine. The ECB as your water heat sink and the foiled and otherwise empty WSM pan a few inches above to catch the bulk of the grease and dripings. I also suspect the drippings would be less prone to hardening (ok, almost burning) on the foil like they do in a long waterless smoke (with foil only and crumpled foil to make an air gap below the foil). I suspect the drippings would be better suited for a sauce or gravy using the double pan method as well. A double pan method like this might work well for drippings from a WSM turkey for gravy (just no water to get the overall temp up - the double pan keeps the dripings as isolated from the direct heat of the fire as possible similar to the way a double pan works for melting chocolate on the stove).

Cleanup of the two pans should be about as easy as possible also thanks to the foil.

About the only potential drawback I can think of is keeping the top pan centered since it just sitting on the lower rack. But since we don't really move the center section around much, if you set it in the middle at the start of the cook, it should stay there. You would have to add water to the lower pan via the side door, but that is not unusual for people who use both racks anyway.

Has anybody tried this before or is there something I have not thought of that would make this a bad idea?

 

[adam clyde]

makes perfect sense to me - it won't impact your cook at all.

 

[Jerry N.]

I did this a while ago and it works just fine. Clean-up is much easier. The only reason I don't use the double pan method is because I don't use water in my cooks.

 

[Chris Finney]

I do that every Christmas making roast beef for lunch, but I catch the drippings in a deep dish pizza pan. I have a spacer that adds another rack inbetween the two exsisting ones and I put the pan on that.

If your meat isn't very fatty, add some oil to your 'catch' pan to make sure the dripps don't burn.

 

[Steve Abrams]

Sometimes I use a foil pan to catch the drippings or just fold some tin foil to the size of the grill. I throw the foil pan or tin foil away.

No need to use the water pan.

 

[David Ward]

Worked like a charm!!!!

Did 3 racks of back ribs, followed up by 2 BCC's since the coals were still going strong (pulled the meat for use in salads and chicken & dumplings).

Clean up took all of 15 seconds - just remove the top pan foil and throw it away. The foil in the ECB pan (water pan) was still clean and did not need to be pulled.

So if you are not using the bottom cooking grate and have an extra pan from the ECB charcoal to water pan upgrade, use the original foiled WSM water pan on the bottom grate as a grease catcher.