Nada in the pan!


 
I inject my butt with apple juice and baste with an apple juice and cider vinegar mix only once (halfway through the cook). So if I expect a 16-20 hour cook I will do a good baste at the 8 hour mark. The butts come out with a nice bark but so tender and juicy that you have to be careful that it does not fall apart when you take it off the smoker.

IMO, water does not add any moister to the meat and using no water does not dry the meat out. I not using anything in the pan again. Deb, give it a shot and I think you will marvel at the results.
 
Dog-gone-it Tony! Just when I think I'm on to something - you guru's change it all up
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Next time my wife and I smoke butts - I have act like using a empty water pan was my idea
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Bill-

I can't recall exactly, but it's about 15.25" diameter at the top, slightly less at the bottom.

It's imported from Italy, and has a big "36" stamped in the middle of it. There was a "32" (too small), and a "42" (too big). I think it's 36cm at the bottom, which would be about 14" which seems about right.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Deb L.:
Does anyone notice if the meat is dried out more without the water? Or is it about the same. And, do you have to spray the meat with anything during cook time? Right now, I usually spray twice during a butt cook, with vingegar/apple juice. I have had such good luck with things as is, but would be willing to try a cook dry. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Deb, NO! The water in the pan does not add any moisture or anything to the meat. It's just used as a heat sink to controll the temps (a fuel robbing heat sink IMO). I have never sprayed, mopped, or basted when smoking in the WSM.
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OK, this weekend is going to be my first Stoker cook, and I also want to go to the no water approach. I have both the regular WSM pan, and the Brinkman pan. Any advantage of one over the other? Does the clay pot base idea have advantages over the empty water pans? I've been pleased with my switch to Royal Oak lump on my last few cooks, but they were all shorter cooks (ribs, chicken, meatloaf). Going with 2 butts and a packer brisket, so will start around 8pm, and probably top off the lump before going to bed at midnight. I'll plan on using the crumpled foil method as mentioned by the Guru folks, so just need to know if there is a compelling reason to use one pan over the other, or go get the clay pot base.
Thanks for any advice!
Todd
 
I have both pans, but since March when I started to use no water I've only used the regular pan with crumpled foil with an overall top covering of foil. This works out fine, and I have not thought about using it with the brinkman pan. The only disadvantage with the brinkman pan that I can think of would be that it would require more foil because of it's size.
 
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