Seasoning the WSM


 
A

Andy K

TVWBB Member
Hi all- as you may know, I'm really new to the WSM club and really excited too! As I type this, I have bacon cooking on the WSM as the seasoning process. The question is, what's some of the greasiest stuff to cook to help season it up? Chicken wings? Whole Fryers? Butts? I didn't necessarily want to do anything too expensive if it's just meant to season and not really eat.

I'm hoping I don't mess it up by not cooking dry a few times before running food in it- I've read that Harry Soo seems to swear that cooking it empty - or said another way, heat it up for X amount of hours before putting the greasy meat into it and then cook X pounds of greasy meat meat for X hours before cooking the good stuff.

I'm to anxious to start cooking and eating, I jumped ahead in the process and heated it up for about 30 mins and then went to the bacon. Now I'm looking to throw other stuff before the "good stuff". Though the bacon tastes pretty good- crispy, greasy and not burnt!

Any thoughts?
 
Never found a need to seasoning as the term implies. My first cook ever were spares and the turned out exactly as you read about here.

All that happens is the "joints" acquire some gunk that helps to seal the air leaks that allow smoke to escape.

Cook the "good stuff" from the get go. It'll all be great when done (from the 'seasoning' point of view).
 
Len Dennis said:
Never found a need to seasoning as the term implies......All that happens is the "joints" acquire some gunk that helps to seal the air leaks that allow smoke to escape.Cook the "good stuff" from the get go. It'll all be great when done (from the 'seasoning' point of view).
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more....cooking empty is a sinful waste of charcoal. Throw a big ol chicken on that WSM and let er rip ! Cook some ribs or a pork shoulder. It will be great and your cooker will be on its way to being broke in.
 
Hi Andy, I'm like you; just took the wrapper off my 22.5 on Monday and haven't had a good 3-4 hour window to burn-in. The more I think about a dry run, I agree, it seems wasteful with the ONLY exception being that I need to make sure to understand how to control the temp.

If I have time after work today, I'm going to get a burn going. If not, this weekend will be smoke central at my house.
 
I just got my 2nd WSM put together last night. Man, I didn't realize how funky a new WSM smells. Weird metallic oily chemical smell. I see now why Harry Soo recommends a serious seasoning process.

My old WSM smells delicious when you open it, like smoked meats. The new one, not so much. It's a *little* better now that I did an overnight burn-in (used about half a bag of charcoal and probably 20 chunks of pecan) and the lid ended up stuck to the middle section so it's starting to gunk up a bit. This weekend I'll be running fatty foods through it to try to get it smelling good like my old one.

If you get a 2nd WSM after seasoning one up really well you'll understand the night and day difference.
 
Jump in and have fun. I washed it out of the box and then I smoked a butt, fatty and bacon the first time I fired it up.
 
Hey Dave, I had the same reaction. I read everywhere that there's no worry and the worst thing on the WSM was cardboard flakes, but my hands were a mess (not black, but definitely "funky") after putting it all together.

That seals it; I'm going to run it high and hot tonight and get a good slow & low tomorrow.
 
Thanks for all the input. I've got two racks of ribs going on it now- started a too late for it to be dinner- but lunch tomorrow is good for me. Filled the ring with KBB and left the center open- put a lump of hickory in the center and poured 1/3 hot coals from the Weber chimney on top of the wood. I then put four more chunks of wood (two apple and two hickory) on top. I put one rack on the bottom and one rack on the top. They were pretty big and I don't have a rack holder. I was surprised that they took up almost all the space on the racks. I thought the 18.5 would be bigger than that. Oh well - no issue, glad I didn't get the 14.5! I rubbed the ribs with some quick rub and sprayed the grates with PAM EVOO. I'm thinking at the 3.5-4 hour mark slapping the wet sauce on and cooking for another 30-45 mins after that.

Any issues with the bottom rack cooking faster than the top? I'm running the water bowl dry but covered with tin foil.

Thanks!
 
I think the top and bottom racks are close in temp.

how are the temps running with the water pan empty ?
 
Frank H said:
I think the top and bottom racks are close in temp.

how are the temps running with the water pan empty ?
Click to expand...

Agree.
A empty foiled pan is just a heat deflector, temps are usually close top to bottom as heat does rise, but you do get more color running on the top VS bottom so you might want to switch them out.

Tim
 
Ok- If I didn't mention it previously, the ribs came out great on Friday - ended up having a midnight BBQ party. On Saturday I put a ~6# pork butt on around 3pm on the top rack and let it cook there throughout the cook. I foil wrapped it around 9pm and pulled it off at 11:30pm since the $8 meat temp said it was ~200 degrees. I then wrapped the foiled butt in a towel and stored it in a cooler till Sunday morning. When I foiled it at 9pm I also spritzed it with my squirt bottle of apple juice and re-spritzed it after pulling it from the heat at 11:30pm when I wrapped it in towel. Did the juice add anything? I'm not too sure, I did notice the pit temp climbed up to about 280 after kicking the legs- probably not more than 45 mins at most since I checked on it about every hour. I didn't really have to adjust the vents after the first hour when I got them set - seemed to hold around 240~. Was it dry? maybe a little, but my buddies didn't notice and loved it- thought it was better than what we could get locally. Plus I added a few dabs of SweetBaby ray's sauce after I pulled it apart on Sunday which added a great flavor (for those that like the tomato wet sauce vice NC vinegar). However, lesson learned for me- I need to cook at a lower temp and/or do something to help the internal juice part of it. I didn't inject since I don't have one yet.

Consequently, today I got an 8# butt so I'm thinking I'll research this a bit more to find a better prep and cooking method than simply applying a rub and throwing it on. I didn't even flip it like so many suggest. The flip-side and up-shot to my cook, I now have a baseline to work from for pork butt. That is to say, I made a pretty good product without doing too much on the first try! My initial thought for the second butt is to cook on the bottom rack this time but do everything else the same. I hadn't considered the top rack to actually be warmer so maybe the bottom rack will counter balance any drying affect that a top only cook may have on the meat.

I do think an IQ 110 or guru would be great to have to help take pit temp guess work out of the equation and have consistency in the results! Looking forward to the next cook!
 
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