Smoking On Long Island Today Rain and Wind are in the air


 
K

Kyle_P

New member
Hello All,

This is my Third cook on my WSM 22. I have done ribs alone and a pork butt alone. Now I am doing 4 racks of ribs and 2 pork butts. I Put the meat on at 6am and I used the Minion method. At the 5 hour mark the butts were at 140 - 150. Now I just added the ribs. The temp will not hit 250. It is about 220. I have also opened all the vents full. they have been like that for about 20 mins now.

Now my question is, because the ribs are cooler and they are on the top is that keeping the temp from rising or is it because of the wind?

Sorry if I sound crazy but guest are arriving at 5 and I want to make sure this is great.

Thanks in advance,

Kyle
 
Hi Kyle, I am on Long Island also, and doing 4 racks of spares today. Darn the weather, full speed ahead!

It's not really cold or windy enough here today for it to be a big factor. Rain is a bad thing for a WSM, so try to shelter your cooker as much as possible. Putting cool/room temperature meat in the cooker will drop the temperature, but it should come back up fairly quickly.

Make sure you have enough fuel left in the charcoal ring. After 5 hours, it should be more than half full, if it's low, you might have to add some more.
If the fuel looks good, try propping the door open with a stick to get more air flow.
Hit the legs with a piece of scrap wood, this helps to knock the ashes down. You can also stir the charcoal up with a stick.This will knock ashes down and help get new fuel in contact with the hot coals.

If you are using water in your WSM, it's harder to get the temperature up if it drops off as compared to not using water. Play around a bit and be patient.

<edit>
I don't use water, I also use an 18 1/2" charcoal ring in my 22 1/2" WSM.
I just fired it up!
</edit>

Bob
 
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Hi Kyle, hopefully no tornados for us.

IF you have a full water pan your temps will stay close to 220 since the water acts as a heat and boils off at 212 moving the heat out of the smoker at that temp. If you want to smoke at a higher temp keep less water in the pan. I often cook at 350 with an empty pan. So maybe try having it half full to get you up a little higher. Let us know how it goes.

James
 
Thank you for all of your input. It means a lot. I am using water. I finally got it to 250. It just took a bit of playing around with. I will post some pictures when it is all done.

Kyle
 
I am having a bit of trouble controlling the temperature, but I have it parked at 265F now and it is going well.

Bob
 
I sure wouldn't try any other smoker than the WSM with the weather you are cooking in!! Hope it all comes out well!
 
Cock the lid to the side, take the door off for a few minutes. The temp will go up quick. Butts are always better if you do them overnight, you can foil them to hold for pulling up to 5 hours in a cooler with no ice. It actually makes them easier to pull. Good luck and good eating!
 
I'm on Long Island also (south shore) Smoking about 30lbs of butt for a fire drpartment meeting Monday night. Very windy right now and the weather is supposed to be windy and wet until about 4am. There's a tornado warning from 600 until around 9. So now I'm debating wether I fire up the WSM, hook up the guru and smoke these bad boys over night or wait til the weather breaks around 4am..... Tough decisions. The Guru does one hell of a job at maintaining temp with the WSM but I'm a bit gun shy with the possibility of rain and high winds. Opinion anyone?
 
Does the Guru require ac power and if so, what method do you have to provide it if power goes out ?

Bob
 
The Guru does run on AC power but can also be run on DC with an optional adapt. Which I don't have. Well it looks like I'm holding out til the storms pass.
 
Good God, when it comes to butts and the WSM, you don't need anything but fire. Everything else takes care of itself.
 
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