First Cook on my WSM Mini Conversion
OK, George assigned me the task of trying the Mini Conversion with each of the three different "flavors" of Smokey Joes that I have in my collection - a Smokey Joe Silver (One daisy wheel bottom center vent), a Smokey Joe Gold (no bottom vent - two side vents on either side of the top of the charcoal bowl) and a old style Smokey Joe (three daisy wheel vents on the bottom of the charcoal bowl, arranged like the WSM).
Today, I did my first cook with the Mini and used my Smokey Joe Silver since it was assembled and on the patio.
The main reason for the cook this afternoon was to cook two whole pork loins for an office party tonight - the loins were cut into three pieces each and I put three pieces of pork loin on each of the two grates of my 18" WSM.
The Mini cook was a "mini" Boston butt - about 3.7 lbs, boneless, that I got at the Piggly Wiggly for 99 cents a pound. If the cook didn't turn out, I could stand to lose the investment in the butt.
I filled the charcoal bowl about 2/3 full of Royal Oak lump. I didn't have a charcoal ring so the charcoal was just distributed evenly across the bottom of the bowl on top of the charcoal grate and a second SJ charcoal grate on top of it at a 90 degree angle.
I fired up the center of the charcoal using my weed burner and let the lit area get hot, and then assembled the smoker. The butt was to cook on the top grate, and a foiled 11.25" clay saucer sat on top of the bottom grate. The bottom vent was open about half way, and the top vent was open about 2/3.
The temp rose pretty steadily and leveled off at about 250 - pretty much the same progression that was going on with big brother next door.
I put the mini butt, seasoned with a basic salt, pepper, garlic powder, chipotle powder and chili powder rub, on the Mini at noon.
The temperatures held steady for about 3 hours and this was looking like any other WSM cook. However at 3 hours, the temps started to dip down to about 225. I opened the bottom vents to full and the top vent to full and the temps went back up - close to 300 - so I had decided to ease them back down a bit by closing the bottom vent slightly.
This is where it would come in really handy to use a carriage bolt to put a handle on the bottom vent and to mark on the bowl the vent positions for OPEN, CLOSED, 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4.
Temps held steady for about 45 minutes longer at 250, then started to drop again down to 225. I sat the mid-section and top off the bowl (this was much easier than with the grown up WSM) and checked where I was with my charcoal. I still had plenty of fuel, but it looked like the bottom vents were clogged with ash. I used the "poker" from my fire pit to knock away some of the ash from the bottom up and the vent holes were cleared. This got me steady temperatures for the rest of the cook. The temps went up to the 275 - 280 range but I didn't bother messing with it because it was just to hard to figure out how open the vents were.
At about 4:30, my probe alarm sounded that the butt was at 185. I already had decided that if it would get to slicing temperature, I would pull it and take it to the office party along with the pork loins.
After resting, I sliced the butt at the party and arranged the pork loin - sliced thin for sandwiches - in an oval along the outside of a serving platter and placed the sliced butt in the middle.
The meat was served with slider rolls and four different sauces - a tart sauce, a sweet sauce, Big Bob Gibson's White sauce and a Chipotle Mayo that I mix up that is killer with pork loin.
Since I would have let the butt go another couple of hours or so had I not had to leave for the party, it was just starting to form a nice bark, but there were several tasty,barky pieces for the cook as the butt got sliced. The meat itself had a modest smoke ring from the hickory and peach wood I used for the smoke, and it had a light, sweet smoky taste to it.
When I left, I left the smoker vents open. I checked the smoker when I got back home around 9 and as expected the smoker was cold. When I checked, all but a handful of the lump had burned.
All in all, I would describe cooking on the Mini as "fun." Something of a novelty, perhaps, but the smoker did a very credible job. I can see working especially well with shorter duration cooks like chickens, wings and baby back ribs. For longer cooks, you will have to figure out how to combat the as build up.
I am thinking about using a charcoal ring fashioned from a cake pan - the kind with the hole in the middle - that will sit over the bottom vent. If ash does build up, it is an easy matter to lift the middle section, pick up the pan, and dump it in an ash barrel, then go right to smoking - about a minute's time perhaps.
I would rate the BBQ from the Mini as about a 7 (not a KCBS 7 - but a 7 on a real 1 - 10 scale). It would have benefited from a little more time on the smoker, but I hadn't had sliced butt in a while and it was very credible.
I would rate cooking on the Mini as a solid 8. It was fun, performed well, was relatively to use (points off for not being able to determine where the bottom vent was when it was being adjusted), and produced a credible product.
Before my next cook, I'll add a carriage bolt to the bottom vent for ease of adjustment and mark the openings on the bowl of the SJS so I know what the bottom vent setting is. I'll also figure out some way to either cut down on the ash dropping to the bottom of the cooker and clogging the vent, or some way to easily empty the bowl of ask during the cook.
Next up, the Smokey Joe Gold.
Here is a picture of the two Weber's side by side:
Me and Mini Me
Pat
