Lesson learned about water pan


 
Frank H

Frank H

TVWBB Gold Member
I just want to share a very important idea that I just got thru my thick skull after frustrating myself needlessly while trying to smoke my first turkey on my new-ish 18.5 WSM.
Now , I have been reading this forum since beginning of July this year and noting all the expertise of veteran smokers and trying to remember all the good advice so that I can produce quality bbq.
I can't TELL you how many times I read that you ought to go with either an empty ( or no) water pan when cooking poultry so that you can get the high temp that produces perfectly cooked chicken and turkey.
And yet for some perverse reason that I can't even fathom , the other day when I went to smoke my turkey , I put in the pan with about a pound of pea stone gravel in it.


Long story short , COULD NOT get the temp above 250 even with all vents open and the charcoal door propped open. No way.
So I got really annoyed and took the whole thing apart and took the water pan out and put it all back together and even with all that lost heat , within minutes the temp ROCKETED up to 325-350 and stayed there til the turkey was done.
So the moral of the story , kids , is when they tell ya to go empty water pan to go high and fast....
BELIEVE THAT!!! Now , brush your teeth and go to bed.
 
In my limited experience I have also found that switching out water pan for clay saucer reduces max temp . However temps remain much more stable .
 
It would have come up to temp eventually. The stone needed time to heat up. I agree that you would be better off with a foiled empty pan for turkey and chicken but you would have come up to temp before too long.

So - after all that, how did the turkey turn out???? That's the important thing. :)
 
Like stones around a campfire, they will heat up. The benefit is that they'lll retain the heat for a looong time ( if you run low on fuel).
 
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