I happily got an 18.5” a few weeks ago after reading this site from time to time over the last year or so.
Lately I have been reading and or posting in a thread or two concerning cooker temps and cooker operation to learn the ins and outs. Particularly posts about wacky/wild swinging lid thermometers.
I was Looking into the temperature thing a bit more and also reading about my problem with the cooker still being 150* 12 hours after a cook(closed up) and the coals still being active 3 days later.
The one thing that kept coming up as a possible solution was the out of round issue. My WSM looked round to me and seemed fine but I figured I'd check it anyway.
I measured my WSM and sure enough, both the bowl and the center section were out of round quite a bit over the 1/4" mark.
I called Weber and told them of the issue and asked if I should bother to try to bend them. The Customer service lady told me that I could try if I wanted to but that they would be sending me out replacments asap. I have not messed with my out of round parts yet, but the replacments arrived thursday. I measured them right out of the box and the charcoal bowl was perfectly round, the center section was within 1/16".
What great people/service Weber has. I didn't even have to give them my address or anything. They had it on file do to my registering my other Weber products over the years.
Now I also had bought a SS door from Cajun bandit. New it had a huge gap across the top & no matter what I tried I could not get it down to less that about 1/8". I emailed Chris at CB for advice on bending as well and low and behold his reply was that I could continue to try to bend the door but that a new door was "In the mail"..... Wow stunned again.
I was on the border of feeling bad/guilty about all of this. Still being unsure if the problem wasn't “just me”.
Then when the parts arrived the guilt went away.
Everything went together so smoothly. Being my first WSM I had no idea that the center section was not supposed to “lock” into the bottom bowl. With the original parts I had to press the center onto the bowl with a bit of force and had to hold onto the legs with my feet and jar the section loose in order to remove it....I didn't know. The new sections simply rest together easily and lift apart easily.
The new door...... a small tweak and putting a slightly larger washer between the screw head and “latch” gave me an almost perfect seal. There is a slight slight gap across the very top that does not concern me at all. It is less than 1/16” I would say.
I cooked on it for the first time last night. Two Chickens halved.
Observations:
(I use a foiled pan with clay saucer with minion method 15 lit coals)
Original parts: Once cooker settled in I Had to close one vent totally and run the other two just barely cracked and it still was running 275 or so.
New parts: Once cooker settled in I Had all three vents 25% open and never had to touch them. It stayed between 245* (when cold meat went on) and 265* lid temp for the two hour or so cook. (235-258 grate temp)
Also, with the original parts my lid thermo was all over the place through a cook (relevance to this thread thread). I am not sure why or even if the extra air infiltration I had with the old parts could/would cause this. But with the new parts the lid thermo was 10* hotter than the maverick grate thermo for the whole cook as well. So it appears that I my have solved my wild swinging lid thermo problem as well.
I stopped the cook at 10pm last night and closed the cooker down. By 11:30pm the temp was down to 125* or so. Got up this morning and it is stone cold.
I am now a happy cooker thanks to the stellar service of both Weber and Cajun Bandit. They both have my business and recommendations for life. They already did before this though.
I gotta go find more stuff to smoke up.
Thanks for reading my story.
Lately I have been reading and or posting in a thread or two concerning cooker temps and cooker operation to learn the ins and outs. Particularly posts about wacky/wild swinging lid thermometers.
I was Looking into the temperature thing a bit more and also reading about my problem with the cooker still being 150* 12 hours after a cook(closed up) and the coals still being active 3 days later.
The one thing that kept coming up as a possible solution was the out of round issue. My WSM looked round to me and seemed fine but I figured I'd check it anyway.
I measured my WSM and sure enough, both the bowl and the center section were out of round quite a bit over the 1/4" mark.
I called Weber and told them of the issue and asked if I should bother to try to bend them. The Customer service lady told me that I could try if I wanted to but that they would be sending me out replacments asap. I have not messed with my out of round parts yet, but the replacments arrived thursday. I measured them right out of the box and the charcoal bowl was perfectly round, the center section was within 1/16".
What great people/service Weber has. I didn't even have to give them my address or anything. They had it on file do to my registering my other Weber products over the years.
Now I also had bought a SS door from Cajun bandit. New it had a huge gap across the top & no matter what I tried I could not get it down to less that about 1/8". I emailed Chris at CB for advice on bending as well and low and behold his reply was that I could continue to try to bend the door but that a new door was "In the mail"..... Wow stunned again.
I was on the border of feeling bad/guilty about all of this. Still being unsure if the problem wasn't “just me”.
Then when the parts arrived the guilt went away.
Everything went together so smoothly. Being my first WSM I had no idea that the center section was not supposed to “lock” into the bottom bowl. With the original parts I had to press the center onto the bowl with a bit of force and had to hold onto the legs with my feet and jar the section loose in order to remove it....I didn't know. The new sections simply rest together easily and lift apart easily.
The new door...... a small tweak and putting a slightly larger washer between the screw head and “latch” gave me an almost perfect seal. There is a slight slight gap across the very top that does not concern me at all. It is less than 1/16” I would say.
I cooked on it for the first time last night. Two Chickens halved.
Observations:
(I use a foiled pan with clay saucer with minion method 15 lit coals)
Original parts: Once cooker settled in I Had to close one vent totally and run the other two just barely cracked and it still was running 275 or so.
New parts: Once cooker settled in I Had all three vents 25% open and never had to touch them. It stayed between 245* (when cold meat went on) and 265* lid temp for the two hour or so cook. (235-258 grate temp)
Also, with the original parts my lid thermo was all over the place through a cook (relevance to this thread thread). I am not sure why or even if the extra air infiltration I had with the old parts could/would cause this. But with the new parts the lid thermo was 10* hotter than the maverick grate thermo for the whole cook as well. So it appears that I my have solved my wild swinging lid thermo problem as well.
I stopped the cook at 10pm last night and closed the cooker down. By 11:30pm the temp was down to 125* or so. Got up this morning and it is stone cold.
I am now a happy cooker thanks to the stellar service of both Weber and Cajun Bandit. They both have my business and recommendations for life. They already did before this though.
I gotta go find more stuff to smoke up.
Thanks for reading my story.