Smoking in the rain


 
M

Matt in MD

TVWBB Fan
Hi all - I am likely going to be smoking through some thunderstorms today. This is my first cook and am wondering if anyone has any tips. I can keep my charcoal dry as it heats up but I can't really cover my smoker or keep it out of the rain once I've assembled it. Is there anything to worry about or keep a eye on other than possible lower temps?

Thanks.
 
You really need to find some way to keep the rain off it. It will roll off the lid and because the lid sits inside the middle section, a lot of the water will drain into the bottom section.

Don't do the smoke in your garage. The CO build up is not a good thing. Some people do it with the door open but I don't.

The rain will have no effect on the temps.

If you've got a patio table with an umbrella/stand, remove the table part and just using the umbrella and stand, set it next to the WSM so the umbrella shelters it. I do that all the time (both to keep water off it and to keep the sun from heating it up and giving a false temp reading on the dome thermo.

I do use a 732 so I don't really pay attention to the dome thermo.
 
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Thanks Len - maybe I will try and set up a tarp as a just in case type of thing. I hadn't realized rain would actually get inside but your post makes sense.
 
I have used the garage with the door up and the smoker not too far into the garage. I used an old box fan to blow the smoke out. I have also rigged up a golf umbrella (spring clamp on a deck railing) to cover the smoker. Len is right -- you don't want rain water running inside the WSM, especially if it's at thunderstorm intensity.

Jeff
 
I have used the patio umbrella. I have considered but not yet done it, setting up the wsm on my front porch so its still outside, but covered by the porch. The only thing that has stopped me from doing that, is that I live in a town house, and I dont want to smoke out my old lady neighbor.
 
Thanks all - I went ahead and bought a pop up shelter - I put the ribs on at noon using one unlit chimney over one lit chimney, and let it heat for an hour before assembling cooker and adding ribs. Meat went in at noon and is hovering at 175 an hour later. I just opened all 3 bottom vents halfway and top vent is wide open. Water pan was mostly full of warm water. Anything else I should do to help raise temp or just see for a while?
 
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You might want to get some sort of tie down or leg weights for the pop up. If it is raining, there is probably a lot of wind. Bad combination. Good Luck!!
 
I used a pop-up for a while, but one day the storm chased me inside and the rainfall was so intense that so much water accumulated on the pop-up, it collapsed. A bad day in barbecue history.

Jeff
 
Thanks all - the pop up helped and the rains seems to have passed through. The ribs are cooking a lot slower than I had hoped. The smoker finally got to 225 but dropped to 190 when I flipped the ribs and hasn't gotten back up yet even with all vents wide open. I guess this is a learning process :/
 
Too late now but: vents in the bottom may be plugged with ash as well as heavy ash on the grate itself. Sometimes I'll just use a pair of tongs to give the coals a bit of a stir/shake on the grate to open up some air holes.

NOT A LOT though. Don't want to stir up the ashes too much as air currents will carry those floaters up to the meat.
 
Matt... just a guess, but I would look at how many unlit coals you used (or should have used).
Number of lit coals partially determines the temperature range you will be cooking at.
Number of unlit coals partially determines for how long you can cook at that temperature range.
 
Bob Bass said:
Matt... just a guess, but I would look at how many unlit coals you used (or should have used).
Number of lit coals partially determines the temperature range you will be cooking at.
Number of unlit coals partially determines for how long you can cook at that temperature range.
Click to expand...
Great advice for the novice smoker.

Matt. I always use the same number of lit briqs when I do a smoke. I also fill up the fire ring to the top, surrounding the tin-can. If you aren't familiar with the tin-can Minion method, see THIS post by Robert McGee, who explains it well. Or if you're doing the Minion without a tin-can, you can read it straight from the horse's mouth >>> HERE.
 
Thank you guys for the advice. The ribs were pretty darn good for my first time! I will read the links and appreciate the help on both the rain and temperature! Im glad I was done cooking before the heavy rains came - I live in the part of MD that got completely flooded last night. Thanks again!
 
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