It's the Weekend!

[doug gillis]

have been waiting all week in order to fire up my wsm and it's cooking now- doing two butts for a father's day menu although it has acted somewhat funny tonight. It's always somewhat a guessing game as rain started to fall about an hour into my smoke but has now dissapated! It started out running fine-maybe getting too hot so I closed drafts to bring down between 225-250 but then a brief rain came and cooled unit. I had to open all drafts 100%. On this same night I had tried using Kroger brand charcoal instead of the Kingsford normally used and it hasn't performed very well- read somewhere that it was made by royal oak and was alot cleaner! I'll buy kingsford next time for sure! The Kroger store brand just seemed to stall out unless you keep alot of heat on it- thank goodness for chunks of hickory I had to keep that stuff burning. I finally got temp regulated to around 250 deg I think I'm in the clear now as running about 250 deg. with bottom drafts craked about 15%. Happy Smoking!

 

[Bryan S]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by doug gillis:
although it has acted somewhat funny tonight. It's always somewhat a guessing game as rain started to fall about an hour into my smoke but has now dissapated! It started out running fine-maybe getting too hot so I closed drafts to bring down between 225-250 but then a brief rain came and cooled unit. I had to open all drafts 100%. On this same night I had tried using Kroger brand charcoal instead of the Kingsford normally used and it hasn't performed very well- read somewhere that it was made by royal oak and was alot cleaner! I'll buy kingsford next time for sure! The Kroger store brand just seemed to stall out unless you keep alot of heat on it- thank goodness for chunks of hickory I had to keep that stuff burning. I finally got temp regulated to around 250 deg I think I'm in the clear now as running about 250 deg. with bottom drafts craked about 15%. Happy Smoking! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
If you don't have any cover for the WSM and it rained, don't blame the charcoal. Water runs down in between the lid and top of the mid section and will cool down the WSM in a hurry. I don't care what kind of charcoal you are using, it will suffer when water is getting into the WSM and pooling up in the bottom of the charcoal bowl.

 

[doug gillis]

actually it all turned out good- was probably the best butt cook I have logged yet. The Kings charcoal in my opinion performs better- even before the light drizzle occured. Now I have to wait until next weekend for a date with my wsm!