BlairMancini
New member
Hi Team,
So yesterday, I had a few hours while the wife was at the mall to fire up my new WSM 22.5" (bought used on Craigslist - used a lot before (so already plenty of seasoning,) CB door, dual charcoal grates.
I wasn't going to do a long "cook;" I just wanted to bring it up to temperature and practice keeping it at a good temperature for a few hours. I had about 3/4 of a bag of Kingsford Blue left, so I filled up a chimney halfway and put the rest in the WSM. Lit the charcoal and tried to use the Minnion method.
I have two Maverick 733s. I threaded the bottom two through the silicon grommet, and the top two I let hang over the side (the lid still closed pretty well, so I was happy about that.) I set my lower alarm to 225 and my upper alarm to 285. No real reason why, just used those as my upper and lower limits. I will likely use a tighter window when I start cooking actual food.
I did not fill up the water pan, but I did put it in the cooker while it was running.
I spent the next few hours adjusting the temperature. It would rise a little bit, I'd go out and close the vents, then it would fall a little bit, and I'd go back and open them a little bit. At first, I would have to move the vents every five minutes or so. By the end, it was every 20ish. I'd like to cook ~275, so I tried to keep it around there.
A few questions.
1) Is the constant rise and fall something I'll just have to live with before I get one of those temp control devices? Meaning, will it ever hold steady? Or will it always be slowly climbing or slowly falling?
2) With that in mind, if I wanted to cook at 275, what kind of leeway should I give in either direction before I get concerned and go adjust the vents? I know this probably boils down to personal preference, but since I have none, is there a rule-of-thumb you guys use?
3) Is there a reason it took about an hour after I put the hot coals on before the dirty white smoke was replaced by cleaner smoke. I know that the dirty white smoke isn't ideal for cooking, so I'd like to keep it to a minimum at the beginning...any suggestions how?
4) The top grate was about 10* lower than the bottom grate. That's weird right? Could have been the way the temp probes were situated. Anyone else find this happening to them?
5) This is just in case of emergency and not something I feel like i need to do right now, but how do you recalibrate the temperature on the 733? Is there a way to do it, to put it in a pot of boiling water and tell it, "Hey, this is 212."
6) I don't know how people put meat on and then go to sleep! Seems like I always had to be on alert for a spike or a fall in temperature!
OK, that's all for now. Thanks so much!
So yesterday, I had a few hours while the wife was at the mall to fire up my new WSM 22.5" (bought used on Craigslist - used a lot before (so already plenty of seasoning,) CB door, dual charcoal grates.
I wasn't going to do a long "cook;" I just wanted to bring it up to temperature and practice keeping it at a good temperature for a few hours. I had about 3/4 of a bag of Kingsford Blue left, so I filled up a chimney halfway and put the rest in the WSM. Lit the charcoal and tried to use the Minnion method.
I have two Maverick 733s. I threaded the bottom two through the silicon grommet, and the top two I let hang over the side (the lid still closed pretty well, so I was happy about that.) I set my lower alarm to 225 and my upper alarm to 285. No real reason why, just used those as my upper and lower limits. I will likely use a tighter window when I start cooking actual food.
I did not fill up the water pan, but I did put it in the cooker while it was running.
I spent the next few hours adjusting the temperature. It would rise a little bit, I'd go out and close the vents, then it would fall a little bit, and I'd go back and open them a little bit. At first, I would have to move the vents every five minutes or so. By the end, it was every 20ish. I'd like to cook ~275, so I tried to keep it around there.
A few questions.
1) Is the constant rise and fall something I'll just have to live with before I get one of those temp control devices? Meaning, will it ever hold steady? Or will it always be slowly climbing or slowly falling?
2) With that in mind, if I wanted to cook at 275, what kind of leeway should I give in either direction before I get concerned and go adjust the vents? I know this probably boils down to personal preference, but since I have none, is there a rule-of-thumb you guys use?
3) Is there a reason it took about an hour after I put the hot coals on before the dirty white smoke was replaced by cleaner smoke. I know that the dirty white smoke isn't ideal for cooking, so I'd like to keep it to a minimum at the beginning...any suggestions how?
4) The top grate was about 10* lower than the bottom grate. That's weird right? Could have been the way the temp probes were situated. Anyone else find this happening to them?
5) This is just in case of emergency and not something I feel like i need to do right now, but how do you recalibrate the temperature on the 733? Is there a way to do it, to put it in a pot of boiling water and tell it, "Hey, this is 212."
6) I don't know how people put meat on and then go to sleep! Seems like I always had to be on alert for a spike or a fall in temperature!
OK, that's all for now. Thanks so much!
