Why water?


 
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I've got a question for the experts. Is there really any advantage to having water in the water pan?

I know that one reason for water is that it acts as a 212 degree heat sink to stabilize the temperature in the smoker. Is this necessary, or can you accomplish the same thing through fire management?

Does having a constant source of steam improve the bar-b-q? Or is it just something you live with because that's the way water smokers work?

Do people running Klos pits add a steam generator when Q'ing?

What's been everyone's experience running the water bowl in the WSM empty?

Thanks.
 
The reason for water is for the 212? heat sink as you stated. If you injoy playing with fire, no water in the waterpan will allow you to play a lot more.
Many who cook on offsets will use a waterpan or add water to the bottom of the horizonal to help regulate heat and makes clean up much easier.
JR pits and I believe Langs also add water in the pit as part of the process.
Adding moisture to this dry enviroment is not a bad idea.
Treager mobile pit suggests using water.
Quite a commmon practice.
Cooking a brisket or pork butt and spending 12 to 20 hours fire tending does not allow for the sleep this fat old guy needs. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
Jim
 
My friend Gary adds water to the bottom of his Klose pit. When he had his 20" x 48", he added about 2 gallons before every cook. There are several good reasons for this.

1. I prevents the grease from solidifying in the bottom of the pit.

2. It made it real easy to clean because almost all the grease drained out with the water.

3. It did help keep the meat moist while smoking.

After he drained the pit, he would add another piece of wood and the heat would dry out the chamber. The existing grease coating the metal protects the metal from rust too.

Now he does the same thing with his 30" x 8' mobile pit.

Just make sure you don't add too much water to where it backs up into the firebox.
 
Thanks, everyone.

Lets take clean-up out of the equation. After all, in the WSM, the empty water bowl serves as a pretty effective drip pan.

I know from reading the website that many of you have run your WSM's with no water. What's been your real world experience?

Can you hold a low enough smoking temp (say 225 to 250 at the lid? Is it that difficult to stabilize the temperature? Are the temp swings really that much wilder running dry than with water?
 
Without the waterpan you have two things going on: radiant heat from the waterpan and the size of your fire to contend with.
The radiant heat can only be delt with by adding water so you have to restrict the size of the fire. Building a small fire and adding fuel often or cut down the air supply.
By cutting down the air supply there are number of things that can happen but a couple are not what you wish to produce top quality BBQ. You will have lower temps but you also have incomplete combustion and dirty smoke.
You can construct a fire ring that would smaller in dia. and taller. This would allow you to keep a supply charcoal ready for burning but have much smaller area of coals producing at one time.
I will tell you that I can't see many advantages to cooking without water.
Ideal BBQ is tender without being mushy, moist, and tasty.
Water in the waterpan helps you get those results with clean burns and a moister environment. A good situation for the production of very good BBQ.
Jim
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jim Minion:
[qb]Without the waterpan you have two things going on: radiant heat from the waterpan and the size of your fire to contend with.
The radiant heat can only be delt with by adding water so you have to restrict the size of the fire. [/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bingo! As I was trying to think through the physics of the situation, radiant heat seemed to be the key issue. In a large smoker, this issue is dealt with simply by the physical distance between the firebox and the cooking chamber. But, in a bullet smoker, you've got the fire very close to the food. A simple sheet metal "firewall" would soon become as hot as the fire giving you a radiant heat problem.

The water is an effective thermal barrier, since it can be, at most, 212 degrees. However, what if you installed a 5/8ths inch thick 15 inch pizza stone in place of the water pan? Now, you have a very effective thermal barrier. The conductivity of the ceramic is quite poor and the top of the stone would tend to stabilize at the temperature of the air above it. In addition, you have added thermal mass to the cooker.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>[qb]Building a small fire and adding fuel often or cut down the air supply.
By cutting down the air supply there are number of things that can happen but a couple are not what you wish to produce top quality BBQ. You will have lower temps but you also have incomplete combustion and dirty smoke. [/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One theory has it that this is a separate issue. That the problem of "dirty smoke" is caused by trying to burn wood in its natural state instead of charcoal embers. Once the wood has turned to embers, it doesn't really have much left to produce "dirty smoke" and you should be able to throttle back the fire as much as you want. Isn't this why people pre-burn their wood?

This leaves us with the issue of a moist enviroment. I could come up with arguments either way on this one. Intuitively, it seems that bar-b-q'ing is not supposed to be steaming. The thought occurs that in a relatively small, relatively closed vessel like a WSM, if you have a pan of water boiling away, you really have yourself a steamer, albeit a smokey one.

I guess in one sense, it's like constant basting. But, I wonder if that really has any effect on anything but the outermost layer of the food? Basting is really just to concentrate the flavors in the crust more than anything else.

Anyway, thanks for kicking this around. I don't disagree with you at all. I'm just thinking out loud, trying to figure out what is really happening. It's an interesting topic and one that probably doesn't have any right or wrong answers.
 
The other problem is your going to get a pan full of grease that is going to burn. Burning pork grease won't do good things to your Q's flavor. The water dillutes the drippings and obviously doesn't burn.

ChrisH
 
Some of the oldest forms of BBQ are digging a pit, line with rocks, build a fire and burn down to coals. The pig would be wrapped in fresh banana leavesf or other large leaves and the placed in the pit. That created a moist enviroment for the pig to be cooked. A lot of the pit cookery in the SE
they will place wet burlap over the pig and then cover with dirt, again the moist enviroment.
If you are cooking on a spit, mopping is used to keep the meat moist.
When I spoke of dirty smoke, you will find that the chunks of wood used for smoke in a WSM will take hours to burn down to embers and you can create dirty smoke for a long period of time. The fastest way to get dirty smoke is to try to use the top vent a long with the bottom vent for heat control. Closing the top vent down is the fastest way to bitter Q.
WSM is not a good unit to use wood as main fuel supply. Preheating logs in an offset helps with heat spikes as you add wood.
Preburning of wood is a technique used if you are going to cook directly over the coals
without a heat shield of any kind (lump charcoal would work as well in the method and be less expensive).
The amount of steam produced in a WSM is not the primary cooking agent but based on old, very old BBQ techniques a moist enviroment is benifical.
The ceramic stone idea has merit but a grease fire is not a pretty thing, nor does it lead to good Q.
Jim
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jim Minion:
[qb]Some of the oldest forms of BBQ are digging a pit, line with rocks, build a fire and burn down to coals. The pig would be wrapped in fresh banana leavesf or other large leaves and the placed in the pit. That created a moist enviroment for the pig to be cooked. A lot of the pit cookery in the SE
they will place wet burlap over the pig and then cover with dirt, again the moist enviroment.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't have much experience cooking whole pigs /infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif , but I have been roasting whoe turkeys over fire since way back when I still had hair. Turkey's are obviously roasted at somewhat higher temperatures than bar-b-quing a pork butt, but the indirect exposure to fire and smoke is all the same.

After about 25 years, I finally stumbled on a technique that is basically the same as the wet burlap swaddled swine. I take a big piece of chesecloth, four or five layers thick and soak it in a mixture of half butter, half boiling water. I wrap the turkey in the cheescloth and throw it on the grate.

For the first half hour or so, this is indeed providing a moist enviroment. But, the real reason for the water is to keep the cheesecloth from burning. An hour into the cooking, the moisture is gone and the edges of the cheesecloth are singed. However, as the fat renders from the turkey, the cheesecloth is totally saturated with grease. So, rather than a moist environment, what you have is the bird being constantly basted with fat. It also protect the skin from the "black stuff" in the smoke. It produces a perfect dark golden crispy crust.

I think this is the same mechanism that's happening on a larger scale with the wet burlap.

The other thing I've noticed is that less smoke wood is better than more smoke wood. I used to add chips or chunks all through the cooking process, but lately I've decided that gives a decidedly bitter overpowering flavor to the turkey. Recently, I've been using a little wood at the start, but not replenishing it as I go -- cooking with just charcoal. This leads me to believe that less is more when it comes to burning raw wood and that charcoal or embers, by themselves, give you all the "smokey" flavor you need, particularly over the course of many hours.

BTW, not to worry about me closing the top vent of a Weber. The only time I've done that in 25 years is when I've got the platter of meat in one hand and I'm headed for the door to go eat!
 
Webb
Your right, it's called smokin' but that can lead to problems you start out, not understanding that a little smoke goes a long ways.
While competing I now of a lot of teams that put no smoke on chicken at all, just what they get from the charcoal. Poultry just doesn't need much IMHO.
This has been fun will have to do again sometime. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
Jim
 
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