Stable Temps

[ScottE]

I ran my new 22.5 this weekend for the first time. I used no water in the pan, just foiled it. Can't even tell ya how much charcoal I had in the ring. I used a weed torch and lit a small area in the center of the coal. Left the bottom section uncovered for 10 minutes. Put the center section and lid on with the refill door off and all vents wide open for about 5 minutes. Placed the refill door back in place and when the temp was just under 200, I backed all three bottom vents down to 1/4 open. The pit went up to 265 and just stayed there the entire cook.

So the next day I did the same thing and she settled in at 250 for the entire cook. I am one happy camper. I didn't cook with the Weber re-fill door. I installed the Cajun Bandit SS door and let me tell you, I think it makes a big difference. With just some slight tweaking this door sits right up against the center section and it does not leak one wisp of smoke from anywhere. The Cajun Bandit door is also heavier gauge than the factory door and that is a factor as well. After I shut the vents all up the pit is darn near cold within an hour or so. I am also pretty lucky that the fit on all three of my sections are real nice!! Trust me, the way the box looked when I picked it up a the store, I was not expecting that!! Just my 2 cents.........

 

[JTodd]

No disrespect intended or meant but 10 degrees +/- is easily obtainable and workable. I have had mine for a year this month and i dial it in to 10 degrees with no problem, and have done this consistently from the first smoke.

I am going on the premise that you have checked your dome thermometer using the boiling water test to make sure it is accurate.

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I use only 10-12 lit briqs in the summer and i let them burn down to where there is very little if any flame before i put them on the unlit.

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When i put my WSM together after i dumped in my lit, i make sure the door is not over any of the bottom bowl vents. I.E. you have bowl vents on each side of the door and one in the rear also my lid vent goes opposite the door, (the dome thermometer should be over the door because this will be the hottest part of the pit, as stated earlier in the thread the door has more leaks than the CIA)

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I start with the vents 100% open as soon as my temp reaches 25 degrees below my target temp i shut them all down to 1/3 open. Once the temp gets to within 10 degrees i put my hand outside each bowl vent to feel for heat, if one or even two is considerably hotter than any of the others i shut it or both down completely, this slows the air where it is the hottest, and dials in the temp to 5 -10 degrees almost every time i have done it, and then i use small adjustments on the open vent if needed for the majority of the cook.

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After that i may need to open one or even both of the closed vents back to 1/3 or a half or maybe even fully open. I have used this method for day and night time cooks with similar results, having a few minor problems, once i let the lit burn down to much and it took it a good 90 minutes to get to temp, and this past March, i smoked on a very windy day and had a spike in temp about 20 degrees over my temp for about 2 hours, but i finally closed them all down and she settled in and i re-opened one vent on the other side.

I do encourage you to keep a cook log as suggested by many more experienced folks than i, on this forum, it allowed me to really zero in on my WSM and learn very quickly how to dial in my temps. Good Luck

 

[Jerry N.]

I don't mean any disrespect either, but + or - 10 degrees is not at all what I was talking about. Rock solid is rock solid. I'm holding at + or - a couple degrees if that. It stays right on 250. I don't think I'm alone with this. Keep it out of the wind, make sure now air leaks and it works. I don't use water and I don't use a auto temp control unit.

 

[Jon Des.]

This may go against conventional wisdom, but try it with an empty water pan or a foiled pan. The reason being that it takes a lot more energy to heat the water (which is essentially a heat sink). If you're shooting for 250, I would try lighting a 1/3rd to 1/2 a chimney and adding that on top of unlit. Start with all 4 vents wide open, and start cutting back as you get to maybe 175. Leave the top open all the way, but close a bottom vent completely and another halfway. This will slow down the rate that the temperature is changing, and from the point where it stabilizes you can make fine adjustments to get exactly where you want to go.

Think of running it more like steering a ship, and the way you're trying to do it now is steering a sports car.

 

[J Reyes]

No disrespect intended or meant but 10 degrees +/- is easily obtainable and workable. I have had mine for a year this in to 10 degrees with no problem, and have done this consistently from the first smoke.

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Once the temp gets to within 10 degrees i put my hand outside each bowl vent to feel for heat, if one or even two is considerably hotter than any of the others i shut it or both down completely, this slows the air where it is the hottest, and dials in the temp to 5 -10 degrees almost every time i have done it, and then i use small adjustments on the open vent if needed for the majority of the cook.

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After that i may need to open one or even both of the closed vents back to 1/3 or a half or maybe even fully open.

JTodd I meant +-10 with no adjustments.. I realize that it can be dialed in and adjusted when necessary to help stay in a certain temp range.... however I intended that to mean that without adjustments (ie fiddling with the vents) +- 10 is tough to achieve.. mine may have more leakage than some and I also run it with just a foiled pan (no water,etc.) and it's usually pretty good and stable but I don't adjust much unless it gets 25 +- away from where I want it to be... which isn't too often.

 

[Marty W]

Ok guys thanks for all the great advice. It has been a couple of weeks since I have been able to get back on here and I wanted to let everyone know what I found. I did the light test and everything looked good. There was very little light shinning through the door and none around the charcoal bowl and middle section and none around the top and and middle section. The only thing that was different was when I cook I run my ET-732 cables under the lid. I decided to install the lamp post mod for the ET-732 cables to take that out of the equation. I am not sure that was my real problem but had been wanting to do it. So this weekend I finally had a weekend with nothing going on and I was able to fire up the WSM for another run. I changed a few things this time around. In the past I would fire up the WSM and wait until it stabilized and then put on the meat. What I realized is I didn't really wait for it to stabilize and prematurely put the meat on and that is when the cycle would start of chasing the temps. This should give you and indication to what was really going on. The lesson I learned is patience. I thought I was waiting long enough between adjustments but looking back I don't really think I was waiting long enough. I would make an adjustment and then wait 15 to 20 minutes and make another one. This weekend I brought the WSM up to temp nice and slowly and when it was where I wanted I backed the vents off a little more and let it sit for at least 30 minutes. I waited until the white smoke had cleared, about 30 minutes, then put my ribs on and just sit back and see what happened. Anyone want to guess what happened? It climbed back up and sit there for the entire cook. It would swing maybe +- 10 degrees but never drifted too far off my target of 250. So in retrospect the WSM was just reacting to my over reacting and if I would just sit back and relax everything will be just fine. Lesson learned and by the way the ribs I had on turned out to be the best I had smoked on either my WSM or my OTS

Thanks again for the help everyone.

 

[Joe P. - Jackson MS]

It's obvious that you still have some temperature control issues. Please don't eat those ribs and send them to me for proper disposal. Seriously those ribs look great. I occasionally run my probe cables under the hood and it doesn't cause a huge problem with the temps, but it's tough on the cables. I think your patience with the temperature is the key. The first time I really locked in on a temperature i thought my thermometer had broken. It didn't move off 250 for hours so I removed it to recalibrate it only to find that it was right and my WSM was awesome at holding a temperature. I still have control issues in windy weather, though.

 

[Jeff R]

Marty, I just reread your originally post and your last. I find it much more consistent to add the meat as I assemble. That way you are not adding another variable to the temp control by adding in a heat sink. No need to wait until the smoke disapates. I struggle to get enough smoke

 

[Marty W]

Jeff, thanks for the tip I will try that next time. I would guess that would keep the meat in the "magic" zone longer for smoke ring creation also. I did add chicken thighs one time when I had quite a bit of white smoke still coming out of the WSM and the chicken came out with a very heavy smoke flavor but I was using chips instead of chunks and I might had had to many chips so maybe that was the culprit of the heavy smoke flavor. One thing I am sure of there is more then one way to get quality BBQ but the common thread in all of them is patience.