Results of my first WSM cook, lots of questions and pics


 
Hayes_Y

Hayes_Y

New member
Hi all, I posted this on an Aussie BBQ forum, but thought i'd also share my experience and ask for your feedback/advice here.

here's what I did and the results

marinated meats the night before - 1.5kg of Pork Neck using mustard powder, cayenne pepper, sweet paprika, truffle olive oil, pink salt and pepper.
3kgs of Pork ribs using Yoshida's spicy bbq/wing marinade.



woke up at 6am, started the chimney with mallee root, filled up the wsm bottom rack mallee root, poured lit coals over unlit at around 6:15am. place some apple wood on top of lit charcoal



placed full water pan in at 7am, placed pork neck on bottom rack, closed WSM and looked at temps rise (top vent and bottom vents fully open). At around 8am, the temp hit 200/110C, so closed off bottoms vents to 25%.

the temps stayed at 110 degrees for the entire day!



at 12pm, chucked in the ribs and checked water pan, topped up a bit with boiling water.



at 6pm, took out the meat and served











anyway - here are my questions, thoughts and comments.

overall experience was a blast! was stunned that this machine was able to keep at a steady temp for pretty much 10 hours NON STOP....I think it could have kept going for another 6-8 easily, but closing the vents at 6pm, the thing died by around 8pm with quite a bit of lump left.

firstly - there wasn't that much smoke I noticed during the cook, did I do something wrong? it was a constant bluish smoke, but nothing compared to a few I've read or seen on the interwebs.
as you can see the ribs - not much of a smoke ring to it - but damn, they tasted awesome, so soft, fell off the bone and it was demolished by my family instantly.
on the other hand, the pork neck, it was meh....... it was a bit soft, meat was nice, but just overall experience wasn't great. I've done low'n'slow on my kettle OTG and it was a better taste and actually pulled, where as this one was just a normal carve.. meat didn't really pull apart? I'm guessing i needed more time?

I noticed the water pan was pretty much 80% full all through the day, only topped up slightly - does that mean my temp was too low and should have increased more? I guess to achieve this, I needed bottom vents opened more?

I loved the ribs and will be doing more and more - will try beef ribs next time, any tips?
I know most of you will say invest in a thermometer/probe.... yes, that's on my list :)

Thanks in advance!
 
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I think you did a great job for the first run. You learned a lot. For instance you know that you need more time to get to easy pull you want.

Also, you figured out you like more smoke so need to add another piece of wood during the cook. (I recommend one at a time until you find what you like). The thin blue smoke is what you want. Once you add another piece of wood it will smoke a bit more.

...and finally you learned you have to open vents more to increase the heat. Though I do not use water if you choose to that's cool. The water not evaporating is not such an issue IMHO. If you need more air to increase to a target temp open the vents. However, the water will keep the temps down by absorbing the heat (it won't go over 212*F) and you may simply be burning fuel and not getting much benefit from it.

At any rate, I think it all looks great!
 
Outstanding job for a first effort. If you haven't already done so start a cooking log for yourself. Make notes of your results and ideas for possible changes.
 
Looks good? Check. No problems? Check. Good meal? Check. Tasted good? Check. Questions answered? Absotively posilutely.
 
All meat looks great from here. BTS (blue thin smoke) is what you need and want. Not the white billowing one. Please consider to remove water in the water pan. I started cooking with gallons of water. By the way I reduced the amount of water to half liter for entire cook. Recently I stopped adding water because HUMIDITY IS IN THE AIR during winter in Rome. I can feel it and check it

Senza titolo di BBQness, su Flickr
 
To my mind water in the pan or no water in the pan is whatever it takes to maintain your temps. With my 22.5 I have found that without water in the pan I tend to run about 250-275 and hard to get lower even with the vents mostly closed, but with water in the pan can run 225 for hours. Since I am usually doing ribs or a butt on it and often pressed for time I don't mind the 250.

You have to get cooking more though, that WSM is way too clean!
 
Jeff Padell said:
You have to get cooking more though, that WSM is way too clean!
Click to expand...

i just bought 15kgs of pork ribs... will be doing them this weekend ;)

Thanks for everyone's comments. actually like the water in the water pan to keep the temp down and stable, I will do a few goes with this method just to test consistency and then I'll experiment without water, etc
 
You might want to invest in another thermometer. I see that your weber is reading around 200° F. and those weber therms are notoriously inaccurate, usually on the low side.
 
I can't see much wrong with that cook. I'd take a plate any day.

I agree with JR. Keep a cook log. One of the best pieces of advice I took when I joined here.

You can post the cook log along with your pics, & you can always refer back when you need to, & it also gives good info to others.

:wsm22: :cool:
 
One comment - perhaps you can remove the membrane from your ribs, and cook them with the bone side down.
 
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