I posted about this a couple times now. I needed a way to smoke while on vacation and I didn't have nearly enough room to take my WSM. This is what I did and it worked fabulously.
I took the base from the WSM and put the charcoal grate in place. Then I took the SJP grate and put it on top to stop coal from falling through. Then I put the WSM ring around the SJP grate. (All this is on the VWB site.)
I put in 1/3 ring unlit then another half ring lit. On top of that went the "handled" grate (from either the WSM or SJP).
At this point there was about an inch between the coals and the grate so I could quickly sear/grill as I wanted to. But... I wanted to smoke. What I did was place foil over the entire inside of the charcoal ring. Then I put my food to be smoked in the area inside the ring. The heat was still able to come up by way of all the holes in the side of the ring. (Food that was put all the way over to the side obviously cooked ALOT faster but I found it no big deal at all to just not use the outter 1" that surrounds the charcoal ring. You have this same issue to some extent with the normal WSM setup.)
We cooked a bunch of things this way: chicken (my wife said it was the best chicken I made to date), kabobs, and london broil (seared on each side for 4-5 minutes then smoked for another 20). It was also convenient to take the foil off at the end, open up all the vents and grill burgers. (Temps grilling reached 450 and stayed there for a nice long time). One last hint - you may want to use the SJP cover - it fits over the WSM charcoal base (the WSM lid does not) and it's also more compact for easy traveling.
I have a couple pics if anyone wants me to post them.
I took the base from the WSM and put the charcoal grate in place. Then I took the SJP grate and put it on top to stop coal from falling through. Then I put the WSM ring around the SJP grate. (All this is on the VWB site.)
I put in 1/3 ring unlit then another half ring lit. On top of that went the "handled" grate (from either the WSM or SJP).
At this point there was about an inch between the coals and the grate so I could quickly sear/grill as I wanted to. But... I wanted to smoke. What I did was place foil over the entire inside of the charcoal ring. Then I put my food to be smoked in the area inside the ring. The heat was still able to come up by way of all the holes in the side of the ring. (Food that was put all the way over to the side obviously cooked ALOT faster but I found it no big deal at all to just not use the outter 1" that surrounds the charcoal ring. You have this same issue to some extent with the normal WSM setup.)
We cooked a bunch of things this way: chicken (my wife said it was the best chicken I made to date), kabobs, and london broil (seared on each side for 4-5 minutes then smoked for another 20). It was also convenient to take the foil off at the end, open up all the vents and grill burgers. (Temps grilling reached 450 and stayed there for a nice long time). One last hint - you may want to use the SJP cover - it fits over the WSM charcoal base (the WSM lid does not) and it's also more compact for easy traveling.
I have a couple pics if anyone wants me to post them.
