Wow!!

[Bill]

Okay, so I slacked for a while. I just now cleaned out my 18.5 WSM from it's first cook.....http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?42920-First-Cook-Done . holy cow! I used cheap briquettes for the cook. I was expecting very little to remain. I was oh, so wrong. Even after dumping a mostly full chimney onto the coals and cooking for close to 3hrs(first cook) before shutting down vents(I was expecting lots of ash), I was surprised w/the results. I expected lots of loose/small chunks and a good(mostly) bit of ash. After a couple hours the dome temp read ambient, so I covered it up and left it.
We've had some brief(10min or so) rains in the interim. Planning a pulled pork cook for tomorrow(7-14), I went to clean out my WSM just a bit ago. After taking off the cover, dome, brushing grates and emptying water pan..I removed the mid section. I was very pleasantly surprised to find my charcoal ring still full w/unlit briquettes. I had expected a bunch of grey, but was greeted to mostly black.
Wow...just wow!!!
Even after my months of research regarding smokers and reading reviews on the WSM(never read a negative) and reading about their efficiency, I was still surprised to see it first hand.

Have two pork sirloin roasts marinating right now, will post pics of the cook and further review of WSM tomorrow.

Edit-mentioned the rain because it may affect the efficacy of the remaining briquettes for tomorrow's cook

 

[Bob Sample]

Rain doesn't affect the efficiency of the cooker that much. You need to worry more about wind than rain.

 

[Dwain Pannell]

You did all you could do by letting it cool and covering it. You'll probably be fine.