WSM 14 Burn Time


 
BFletcher

BFletcher

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Hi. Over the past year I've occasionally smoked with the WSM 22 and it has been a pleasure. But for the fun of it I bought a 14. A 3 hour smoke was a nice success but an attempt with a 9 lb shoulder was a failure, in terms of not being able to complete it on the 14. I got 9 hours out of a heaping full basket of KBB with 10 lit coals in the 40's-40's with a wind breaker and no water. I added handfuls after that but the unit was not able to recover. After it cooled there was so much ash that the fuel grate was not visible. Will I be able to hone-in on a method that will give me 14 hours by staying with KBB and not relocating the heat shield? And speaking of the shield do you know of a hazard by removing it if I'm smoking on a slab? Thx.
 
I removed the heat shield on mine and put on the outside... see link below that another forum guy did. Very easy and only took about 30 min. It makes a big difference as far as room for more ash and air flow inside. I did a 9lb butt on my 14.5 a few weeks ago, got almost 10 hours at 240-250 degrees, no water, clay saucer, with Kingsford Long-burning coals minion method and 10-15 lit coals put in center. I wrapped at 160ish and had no issues making to the finish. Another mod I added on my 14.5 that made big difference was installing the gasket seal around the door and lid, much tighter and better temperature control.

https://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?63948-More-room-for-ash-14-5&highlight=wsm+14.5+heat+shield
 
I have not smoked anything for longer than about 8 hours and I end up with about half to 3/4 of the charcoal left.
I use lump charcoal and a waterpan.
The air vents are normally throttled back quite a bit.
It may be because of the ambient temperature.

Anyway, no idea if this works, but it might be worth a try.
The 14" wsm is pretty light, so I was thinking that whenever you think you are about to run out of charcoal, you just take off the whole top and middle section, clean out the charcoal bowl, replenish charcoal and add some lit charcoal and then just put the middle/top section back on.
It shouldn't take you to long to do that and the meat should have enough intrinsic heat to not cool down too much (it should be somewhere in the stall anyway).

As said, I haven't tried it.....
 
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