One Butt, no pan...


 
K

Kirk Hetzel

TVWBB Fan
Had the time to try something new (to me anyway) today. Cooking a 7.5# butt with no water pan at all. Read about it and for awhile was thinking about a big drum smoker but decided to try out the WSM without the pan first. Using my pit minder to control the temps and my wind screen to keep out any stray air, but ready for a big temp fight just in case. Going to turn it every 3 hrs or so, and baste with a apple juice, JD mixture.

Results and pictures to come....
 
Kirk, I started cooking that way lately. No problems. Cooked four big butts a couple of weeks ago and ribs last weekend. Monitor your temps on the way up closely. I get to temps quickly, put the meat on faster, and clean up is a breeze(no dirty water pan).I put foil over the top of the pan and it catches all the drippings. It's exciting to experiment. Good luck.
 
I'm interested in hearing about the results as well. I think I read once that BGE owners fault the WSM because it is wasteful of charcoal...something to the effect that you have all this charcoal burning but most of the heat energy is just wasted on the heat sink (water pan). Something like that anyway.
 
Update:

Well after 12 hours the butt was at 185. Since I want to go to bed I foiled it to get the last 5 or 10 degrees.

Some notes:
- the butt reached 160 in about 4.5 hours, so if i would have foiled then I would have been done much sooner. I thought it was going quick enough so I didn't.
- The smell of the cook was very different from anything else I've done. Smells good but the smell of the fat falling into the fire is alittle stronger than my normal conditions.
- The butt looks more red than a normal smoke, Still has a nice black bark too though.
- I was astounded by the temperature control I got with the pit minder. I had temps between 225 and 250 all day long.
- I added alittle more fuel at 8 hrs. Didn't really need to but since I had the cooker open to baste I did.
- After 12 hrs of fat falling on hot coals becareful when you open the cooker. When oxyen hits it you get a grease fire pretty quick. Just close the cooker and it goes out quick too.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow! Might have my new logo by then too!
 
I cook exclusively with an empty water pan but cooking without a pan at all is interesting. You were essentially cooking direct instead of indirect with the meat well above the fire of course. I'm assuming you used the top grate. I'm surprised that you were able to control the temperature so well considering the amount of fat that must have been dripping on the coals. One question -- how difficult was it to clean up the charcoal bowl with the amount of fat that dripped in there? I'm glad you pointed out the risk of a grease fire when using this method. Experimenting is certainly fun!
 
Took me a little linger to get to those pictures, but here they are. The finished butt, and a close-up of butt with some meat pulled off (nice and juicy). I haven't cleaned the charcoal yet, Thats for tomorrow, I.m hoping the ash soaked everything up.

Served this butt at a small family gathering this weekend and everyone loved it. Said they thought it was the best yet!

Finished Butt

Close-up
 
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