Jennifer K
TVWBB Super Fan
After struggling with coals spread too thinly for my 6 hour rib cook, Don Reed suggested a smaller basket and sent me here, to see this idea - his basket is shown some ways down the linked page.
Well, I took that pic to the local welding shop and asked them to make something like it for me. They came up with just the ticket and I put this little basket through its paces on July 4 doing my Holy Grail chicken cook. Here it is "after".
I fully lit one chimney of Stubbs, and tipped them into this basket. It did a fantastic job of keeping the coals tight. The temp in my WSM shot straight up to 250-300 range and sat exactly where I wanted it. Smoke flowed fast and blue, seemed like there was more air movement inside the WSM than usual. I cooked without a pan that day, too, so that probably helped.
Here's another shot of the basket, this time inside the WSM ring, for size comparison.
I paid quite a bit for the basket ($120) but I can see I'll get heaps of use from it.
The one thing I'm not sure about is whether I should paint it using some kind of heat resistant paint.
Well, I took that pic to the local welding shop and asked them to make something like it for me. They came up with just the ticket and I put this little basket through its paces on July 4 doing my Holy Grail chicken cook. Here it is "after".
I fully lit one chimney of Stubbs, and tipped them into this basket. It did a fantastic job of keeping the coals tight. The temp in my WSM shot straight up to 250-300 range and sat exactly where I wanted it. Smoke flowed fast and blue, seemed like there was more air movement inside the WSM than usual. I cooked without a pan that day, too, so that probably helped.
Here's another shot of the basket, this time inside the WSM ring, for size comparison.
I paid quite a bit for the basket ($120) but I can see I'll get heaps of use from it.
The one thing I'm not sure about is whether I should paint it using some kind of heat resistant paint.
