WSM 14.5" "Modifications"

[Lee Ingraham]

Hey all,

I ordered a few items to "modify" my WSM. The ash pan only allows for about 6hrs of cooking with Kingsford Professional before it starts choking off the fire.

Many people had mentioned raising the charcoal grate, but I ended up just buying a stainless steel colander. It has a base that raises it about an inch and it already has handles.



The colander wouldn't fit in the smoker as is, so with a quick trip to the vise, they were adjusted.


I don't think it would offer much in the way of additional volume, but the stock charcoal ring does fit snugly inside it to get some extra capacity. The biggest plus of this whole set up is the handles, I can sift and lift without having to dump my good coals in another container.



Because I don't use the water pan often I'm going to replace it with a pizza pan! This is a 12" heavy weight deep dish pizza pan.
It doesn't quite fit on the water pan section of the grill straps, but the bottom cooking grate fits on it well enough that I'm likely to modify the grill straps to remove the water pan portion and just lower the bottom grate portion to offset the extra height.



And here's everything assembled.



Looking forward to doing some cooks with this set up!

 

[Michael Richards]

Keep us updated on how the mods work!

 

[LarryL]

I like the idea of the colander. Let us know how much more charcoal you’ll be able to hold and how long you can cook without changing charcoal

 

[Lee Ingraham]

Cooked a 11lb pork butt with it Friday night. The smoker seemed to settle in at 275 lid temp instead of 250. I don't know if the it was because the coals were higher and getting more airflow through the colander but that's what I'm telling myself... I completely filled the ring and colander combo and lit it using MM.

Took the pork butt up to 170F, which took about 6hrs. Temperatures were still holding very well. I shut all the vents to kill off the fire and put the butt in the oven to finish off.

The next day I emptied the ash pan. Noticed there was a lot of ash build up in the colander. I may have to drill some bigger holes in the bottom to let the ash drop out easier. There was still a considerable amount of charcoal left in the colander and only a bit of discoloration. Structurally it looks sound after being subjected to that kind of heat for a extended period.

 

[Lee Ingraham]

Even if the setup doesn't substantially increase capacity I'll likely stick with it for the ease of having a charcoal basket with handles. Here are the links for the items I purchased. Oh! I forgot to mention the pizza pan. The deep dish pizza pan did great catching the drippings and, despite it being aluminum, it only had a bit of discoloration on the bottom from the smoke. I took some scotch Brite to it and it cleaned right up.

SS Colander:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0166P6QNM/tvwb-20

Heavy weight deep dish pizza pan:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01JRXSL3S/tvwb-20