Oh no....what did I do??!!!


 
J

J. Wilson

TVWBB Fan
So I'm relatively new to the WSM....and I've only cooked with either an empty water pan or the clay pot in the water pan....until last weekend.\

I cooked ST. Louis ribs minion method....with a full water pan. Earlier this week I noticed an orange grease at the top 1/4 of the cooking chamber and all over the inside of the lid. (I see the "dust" is on the grate also) It's that same color of the grease in the water pan. (I dumped contents of water pan day after cook and took water pan out.) Most of it is dust now and has wiped off but some of it is kinda stuck. I'm gonna run an empty WSM with lump and get this thing screaming hot and see what I can burn off. I don't want to scrub this thing down with soap and water right now.....and sure as h-e double hockey sticks aren't doing this everytime I cook with water.

I LOVED cooking with water due to the temp. control....but if I'm going to get this everytime with water than this is for the birds. Is this normal? Do you guys have any advice? I just kept the charcoal burning all day to see how long of a burn I could and stirred the coals after about ten hours....did this stir something up? Your help is appreciated.
 
J.W. Just my $0.02 but I have NEVER cleaned the inside of any of my WSM's and I have had my 18.5 going on 2 decades. The heat will sterilize it every cook and I consider the slight build up to be "seasoned" and it also helps with temp control I feel versus cooking on a New WSM which seems to reach higher temps. At least with my experience it will never build up to the point of it being an issue or get in the food. Remember it is a grill and it will not stay clean as New. I do clean my grates and water pan thoroughly after each cook but besides that I empty the charcoal and refill and cook more. Every Christmas I give away boneless turkey breast's to my best clients as gifts and do roughly 30-35 250-275lbs in total the week before Christmas in batches of 6 at a time on my 22.5 and use to do batches of 4 on my 18.5 before they made the 22.5 and not taking into consideration all the other cooks during the year. So my thoughts are don't worry about any residue.
 
at the risk of getting flamed, I often don't foil my water pan, run it dry no foil and just wipe it out, once in a while I will scrub it, but probably not till spring when it gets above 40 degrees. I don't clean the inside of the WSM but do scrape the grates with a brush. I have done my Weber propane grills the same way for 30 years.
Every once in a while they light up really good and burn everything out, rather spectacular, will try to get picks the next time. about once a year I clean the grates on the Silver B, in the meantime I will brush them off with a wire brush.
my wife and I and 3 healthy boys but a daughter in law haven't seen any ill effects.
 
You got a dusting of smoke on the inside of the WSM. No problem. You may get this some more until a layer of grease gets built up. If it bothers you, do a batch of really fatty bacon in there to speed up the grease layer.

As mentioned above, most people typically don't clean out the insides of their WSMs. Especially so if the smoker gets used with any degree of frequency. In my opinion, this is a good thing. The WSM seems to work better with a good interior coating of grease. It seals up the joints which allows better fire/air control. About the only bad thing that can happen is if the smoker doesn't get used for a long time, the grease can get a little funky smelling. Then I would clean it all out and start over. Other than that, clean the grates but leave the inside walls alone.

Of course, that means that you have to USE the WSM every so often. Know what I mean?

Russ
 
Jeff Padell said:
at the risk of getting flamed, I often don't foil my water pan, run it dry no foil and just wipe it out, once in a while I will scrub it, but probably not till spring when it gets above 40 degrees. I don't clean the inside of the WSM but do scrape the grates with a brush. I have done my Weber propane grills the same way for 30 years.
Every once in a while they light up really good and burn everything out, rather spectacular, will try to get picks the next time. about once a year I clean the grates on the Silver B, in the meantime I will brush them off with a wire brush.
my wife and I and 3 healthy boys but a daughter in law haven't seen any ill effects.
Click to expand...

You won't get flamed here. You do your thing as you see fit.
 
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