My first WSM cook was a 16-hour overnight cook of a butt over a brisket. I pretty much stayed up all night with it, catching a short cat-nap here and there in the sky-chair by the smoker on the patio. After that initial fiddling with the vents to get stabilized, there really wasn't much for me to do other than record temperatures every 15 minutes. Now I get the smoker fired up, meat loaded, and temps stable by around 9:00 pm, watch temps on the remote ET-73 until I got to bed, and then just let 'er chug along on her own. I'll usually check on things around 2:30 or 3 am, simply because that's when the senior citizen cocker spaniel usually wants to go outside.
Now when you say this, I'm a bit confused: <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I'd like to get a WSM and be able to fire it up at 6pm and get smoke on the meat till midnight then load it up and sleep for 7hrs without having to check on it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>If you fire up the smoker initially using Jim Minion's method (a full charcoal ring of unlit charcoal, topped by 15-30 lit briquettes depending on the temp) you can get those extended cooking times on that initial load beginning at 6:00 pm and NOT have to load it up again at midnight. My longest cook to date on a single load of charcoal using the "Minion Method" is 17 hours running all night, no wind, mid-60's temp.
The WSM will be able to give you your ideal cook with no problems, right out of the box with no mods. Some folks DO like to buy a Brinkman replacement charcoal pan to use as a waterpan on the longer cooks simply because it will hold twice the water of the supplied WSM waterpan, saving you the trouble of having to refill the waterpan halfway through the cook. Academy Sports and Outdoors stores carry these Brinkman replacement charcoal pans for about $5. I've bought 'em here in Tulsa for several people and shipped them, so if you decide you want one and can't find one, let me know.
Keri C
Still Smokin (and flappin' her jaws again) on Tulsa Time