Safe to leave WSM un-attended for many hours?


 
B

Bryan B

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I know many people use the WSM to smoke for up to 12 hours with minion method, etc. so this question isn't can you do it, but is it safe to do so? As in, If I were to leave my smoker running all day when I'm at work, should I be concerned that some ash may get out of the smoker and catch my yard on fire? I don't see why it would, but i'm just being paranoid. Any reassurance would be appreciated. If anyone has personally does this before with no issues, that would be good to know as well.

Thanks.
 
I've gone 20 hours dozens of times and scarcely looked at it. It sits directly on a wooden deck, just 6 inches off the ground, in an often dry pasture.

Ash won't start a fire. It's ash. Embers could but the odds of some sort of wind that could actually enter the cooker, lift the ember and get it out of the cooker are vanishingly small. Make sure your door is secure. Then no worries.
 
Thanks guys, I actually started it this morning before work, so I was just posting to get some re-assurance that I don't need to drive home and check on it. Yes, the door was completely locked when I left it. Kevin, what you said makes sense, thanks.
 
Bryan, welcome to the forum. As far as safety issues, make sure there is no flamable material that could lay up against your cooker. Make sure that there is no chance something or someone might knock it over, but I think the real safety issue is that someone might smell that smoking meat and rush over and help themselves. You may want to post a guard or at least get a motion detector alarm system.

Mark
 
I think I should be good. If a neighbor steals my food, there WILL be a FIGHT
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The WSM a pretty enclosed system, and the heat shield on the bottom does a fair job of keeping it from burning anything underneath. The only thing I've ever worried about is the fire going out (which happened to me the first cook I did on it), not burning out of control.
 
I actually tried this for the first time a couple weeks ago and was feeling the same way you are right now. I ended up driving home on my break to find out that it was complete waste of time. You should be good to go!
 
Yea Bryan, no problems , but if you are interested you could try one of these. I use one of these as a modified wind break. It is 12" tall, which is high enough to block any wind coming into the bottom vents, and it also keeps any stray coals from dropping out by chance.
Turn it over and it also makes a good place to set your lid or your mid section.
The reason I bought it was to use as a soaking tub for my grates on the WSM and my OTG (but it's also a multitasker).
Hope that helps.

Tim
 
It came out VERY GOOD. I have not tasted any yet, but will soon. I was going to post more pics but my camera battery is dead. The flat was so tender I ended up just pulling it instead of slicing it. The point was a little burnt in spots, I think because it was so close to the edge of the WSM which is where most of the heat comes from, but I don't think that's necessarily bad. It's like a burnt end without having to chop up and put back in the smoker. I did chop up some of the fatty top section and place back into the smoker just to see what happens. Never tried burnt ends before, but "smoke and spice" says to use the fatty top layer for that. Overall, this looks to be about 100x more successful than my last brisket attempt which was on an offset. I think the constant fluctuation of temps in an offset must be really bad for the brisket.
 
Maybe it's not necessary but every time I cook I water the grass around the WSM for a few minutes to get it good and soaked. Once the fire is in a controlled burn I feel a little more secure, it's just getting it started...
 
Never had a problem with that with my WSM , I use the minion method in my smoking , it sits on my concerte back porch , and never have I even see the hit of a burn mark so far , I know some folks that bought some of those walk way paito slabs and put them down for wood decks and havent hada problem that I know of yet.
 
I did a butt on Sunday. Put her on at 2:30am, went to sleep. Woke up at 7:30 and went to the beach at 8:00am. I got back from the beach at 4:00pm. I pulled it at 5:30pm and it was still at 174 for 7 pounder, it would not want to get out of the plateau. I had a large group of people that were hungry from being at the beach all day so I ended up chopping it up instead of pulling. I set it at 225 along with my Auber temperature control and itself the entire time. I still had a lot of charcoal when I pulled. Based on my experience yesterday I would say its safe to leave alone.
 
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