Long Cool Down Time


 
JRAiona

JRAiona

TVWBB Gold Member
This may be a silly question but has anyone experience their cooker taking longer than usual to cool down on a windy day? Usually even after doing a HH cook like I did today, once I shut the vents down it's cool enough to cover within an hour or so. Today we have sustained winds of 25 mph gusting to 40 mph and the cooker is still is very warm almost 4 hours later. Is this unusual?
 
JRAiona said:
This may be a silly question but has anyone experience their cooker taking longer than usual to cool down on a windy day? Usually even after doing a HH cook like I did today, once I shut the vents down it's cool enough to cover within an hour or so. Today we have sustained winds of 25 mph gusting to 40 mph and the cooker is still is very warm almost 4 hours later. Is this unusual?
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I haven't experienced this but speaking as a former professional fireman the one thing you can be sure of is that a fair amount of air was still getting into your cooker. If you have decent seals on your joints, vents and door then when you close them all, the coals will start to die immediately. The latent heat will still be around for a while but if its windy, that will go faster as the cooker surface will radiate that heat away faster in wind than when it is still.

My advice is to take a close look at all your joints. Sounds silly but try putting a torch inside the cooker at night without grills or pans and see if you can see any light showing from the outside and if you find some, that will be where the coals are still being fed by oxygen. Then focus on sorting those out (imho), good hunting.
 
Usually when I'm done, I open all the vents to let the fire burn itself out and use up anything left... I this flawed? lol
 
I probably should focus a bit more on being more efficient in that aspect seeing as how I'm practicing just about every weekend.

My concern was having half burnt wood left in there.
 
Yea, I do HH most of the time, and like you it usually takes an hour to cool off, but today were in the 50mph wind gusts.
Petroni nailed it IMO. Any small leaks will let air in and fuel the fire.

Tim
 
timothy said:
Yea, I do HH most of the time, and like you it usually takes an hour to cool off, but today were in the 50mph wind gusts.
Petroni nailed it IMO. Any small leaks will let air in and fuel the fire.

Tim
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Is it something I should be concerned with Tim? Under normal conditions it cools down pretty quickly.
 
No I wouldn't, In crappy weather you just have to deal with it. But you have to ask yourself how many times will I deal with extreme conditions?

Tim
 
Good point. Up to now I haven't really done a lot during less than ideal weather conditions. But as part of my learning experience I want to do some cooks in not so great weather.
 
I've got gaskets on everything but the bottom section. I think the leak would be the lower vents themselves. I don't think you ever truly shut them completely down. Mine don't seem to anyway. The little tabs in the vents prevent it.
 
I've been holding off on gaskets till I get 12+ cooks in my 22, just to see if I really need it... Those with a well seasoned pit, do you still find it necessary or beneficial?

My 22 doesn't leak much at all, maybe from the lid lip, but not enough to really be a concern (a puff here n there).

Did you all install gaskets when you first got ur wsm or did you wait?
 
Mac LA said:
I've been holding off on gaskets till I get 12+ cooks in my 22, just to see if I really need it... Those with a well seasoned pit, do you still find it necessary or beneficial?

My 22 doesn't leak much at all, maybe from the lid lip, but not enough to really be a concern (a puff here n there).

Did you all install gaskets when you first got ur wsm or did you wait?
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If I could do it again, I would gasket the door, but that is all. The lid is fine, and the sections don't fit very well if they are gasketed - at least mine don't
 
Andrew F said:
If I could do it again, I would gasket the door, but that is all. The lid is fine, and the sections don't fit very well if they are gasketed - at least mine don't
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I solved that problem with the addition of a Cajun Bandit door, fits like a glove.

Good info tho.

Thanks

Johnny
 
We live in a very windy area, when we don't have winds it's eerie. On both my mini and 18.5 WSM when I'm done I make sure the wind is hitting the back of the unit and the top vent is also downwind side. Of course the vents are closed. I usually have a cool WSM in about an hour to an hour and a half unless it's really blowing 35mph and up then it's a lost cause.
I reuse the coals that are left with a 50/50 mixture of old and new for quick cooks on the SJ or performer.
 
Thanks Rich. Yeah under normal conditions I also have a cool cooker in about an hour. I'm really trying to learn and wanted to try cooking in windy conditions. I didn't know what to expect. I reuse unspent coals as well.
 
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