water, sand, or nuthin?


 
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Chet Johnson

TVWBB Super Fan
The last few weeks, I have been doing a bit of experimenting. Here's what I have found so far. Am I on the right track, or am I missing something?

Water: Burned more fuel, but didn't experience any big temp spikes. That is, unless I forgot to keep the pan topped off. I did have an incident once where adding water to a dry pan caused the grease to boil over into the fire and destroyed two otherwise wonderful pork butts. Grease smoke tastes bad. Seems like a risky proposition unless I want to babysit the smoker full time. Cleanup is just plain nasty. All three bottom vents open about 30-50% most of the time and top vent wide open. This is how I learned to use the WSM until I found this site.

Sand: Brought up to temp from the low side. Temp spikes take awhile to settle back into range, but otherwise things were easy to control. A little foil depression in the pan made cleanup pretty easy by catching the grease for easy disposal. I was pretty happy with the control I had. Used it both for for ribs and butt. Two of the bottom vents open about 25% and top vent wide open. No additional charcoal was required for the cooks.

Nuthin: Temp control took me awhile. The first hour I was fighting to keep it down and it still went > 300 degrees. I finally ended up closing all three bottom vents and reducing top vent to about 60-75%. Finally got the temp stabilized at about 240. It was a really big brisket so I don't think it did much harm. Still tasted pretty good and pulled apart nicely. This was my first brisket, so I don't have much to compare it with. Discussions on this site inspired me to give it a try. Cleanup was as simple as with sand, except that I didn't have to deal with the sand.

In the not too distant future, I will be using a bbqGuru. I guess I will have more learning to do then.
 
Chet,
You are a brave or foolhearty man, your first brisket basicly direct! Cook one with water or sand and give yourself something to campare to.
Jim
 
Hmm....Never really actually measured the water. Guess the original pans holds more than 1 gallon? I just filled it up to the just under the lip.

I also have a drain in my back yard so clean up is not a problem. I may try sand, I just don't know yet. Oh! The brinkmann pan showed up Sat. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
 
Rick, I tend to agree w/ you as I use sand also...have you done 4 butts or briskets at a time? Do you find that the bottom is hotter than the top due to sand and not water? Do you rotate top to bottom when you are cooking??!!
 
I have just started mathematically modeling the WSM in sand and water configurations. When my analysis is complete I'm going to post the results in a "Physics of BBQ" topic.

I just finally decided that I'd put some science to this debate once and for all. Hopefully when I'm finished all the sand vs water questions will be answered. Sorry, but I'm a physicist and I couldn't resist... /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
 
JP:

Some have joked on this board about Q'in not being rocket science and now you just gotta prove us wrong. Now you are going to start telling us about heat blooms due to impurities in the water ...or sand for that matter. I had just resolved to keep it simple...sand, a dome therm and a Polder probe. /infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Keep us posted.
 
Cool.

Are you considering discrete event analysis, a hybrid, or Bayesian statistical probability? I'm thinking that if an adequate sample can be collected, Bayesian sort of logic might work pretty well. DEA would be fine if we could actually figure out what all the variables are. There is an old thread about data loggers. Hmmm...

I'm not a physicist, "just" an engineer.

In God we trust. All others bring data.
 
Greg,

So far with the sand pan cookings I have only used the top, cooking only two butts or one brisket. Also ribs and chicken did just as well as with a water pan. When cooking butts or briskets I never move the meat,no turning flipping. If I think I need to look at it I will get a mag light and look down through the top vent. "Be very quiet , so not to disturb the meat". Some times I will foil the brisket after I see a temp of 170* +. I did try something this last butt cook. I dont like what foil does to the bark, and I dont like a chewy bark, so , when the butts reached 165* I placed them in a brown paper bag and let them cook on till 198* at a cooking temp of 225*...dont tell anybody about this , it is awsome!

Next time I will do something to keep an eye on the lower great temps, so I can answer that question

See Ya ,Rick
 
I am planning on doing a butt or two on the top and a brisket on the bottom this weekend! If I get to it before you, I will let you know how it turns out. I plan on letting the butts baste the brisket-hence the brisket on the bottom!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Greg Rempe:
Do you find that the bottom is hotter than the top due to sand and not water? Do you rotate top to bottom when you are cooking??!! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Greg, I 've gone to sand. My results are reversed from Chet's. I had spikes with water, none with sand.

But, yes, I do now get crispy bottoms on the lower rack. The radiant heat has turned it to the hotter spot, even though the dome temp is still higher.

When I put my middle rack in, I have to rotate the meat, as the meat on the middle rack runs about 25-30° (internal) cooler than the top and bottom.

Howard
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chet:
Probably foolhearty. I have been told I have more dollars than sense.

/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Chet <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> CHET I LOVE THIS YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES MY PARENTS HAVE TOLD ME THIS OVER THE YEARS (LOL) Thanks for the great laugh
 
Before I got the Guru, I was using sand every time...works like a charm, especially for overniters. You don't use anything in the pan with the Guru (per the directions), just foil it for easy cleanup.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

 

Back
Top