Anyone use one?

Pros?

Cons?

If you have to look it up, I won't need your advice.

Gracias.

You're not going to get anywhere with that tone.

tail - I have one that I use with my Weber kettle. It's been a great intro to the art of low and slow cooking, but after about a dozen cooks, I am looking around for a WSM. Here's a quick rundown of the pros and cons from my experience with it:

Pros:

Cheap

Idiot proof

Takes up less deck/patio space

Good intro to smoking

Cons:

Even with drip pan, makes a mess of the kettle

Needs more charcoal reloads than you think for long cooks

Ash buildup on coals plays havoc with temps, as does removing lid to knock off/push down ash

In short, it's a great starter for minimal $$, so if you don't know whether you'll be doing a lot of BBQ cooking, go for it. If, however, you already know you're stoked on this kind of cooking and plan on doing more than 5-6 cooks a year, I would go with the 18.5" WSM - there are legions of WSM fans on here.

Hope this helps.

TW and I had a decent length discussion on these some time ago. Pros, cons, how well they truly work, etc.

They do work, but they have some shortcomings, some due to the design of the smokinator, some due to the limitations of the kettles; temp spikes, small water pan, can't do really long cooks are the biggies.

Since I didn't want to deal with refilling the water pan every two hours or thereabouts, I ended up just going and buying two firebricks and sticking them in a 22" OTS and foiling the firegrate that was under the food area to prevent drafts. You get a more constant temprature with the firebricks and it'll cost you all of about $5.

The biggest problem with using a Weber kettle for a smoker is air control. Unless you have one of the old triple rotating vent grills, the OTS & OTG grills don't seal well on the vents, a lot of air gets by even with the vents at 0%. Sealing off two of the slot vents from the outside with high-temp foil tape or simply stove cement and a cut up disposable foil pan will help, because if you don't, you'll have a hard time getting the temps below 240F, even with the lower vents at 0%. That's with blue-bag kingsford. If you burn lump or that KF comp ****, you'll be even hotter.

You can further drop the temp in the kettle converted to a smoker by choking the exhaust vent down, but that's considered a bad practice since it can create a smoky exhaust which will leave a sooty coating on the food.

A full fuel load of KF bluebag briquettes lit by minion method will run for about 6-8 hours. With firebricks, you can push them out a bit and sneak another hour or two worth of unlit briquettes in there when you are loading the fuel side. If you burn KF comp or lump a full load will run for about 2 hours less.

Here are some photos of the setup:

http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/6800/firebricks1.jpg 

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6930/firebricks2.jpg 

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/8077/firebricks3.jpg 

I used a 4-1/2" angle grinder with a masonary wheel to grind the oustide edges of the firebricks round to roughly match the curvature of the kettle.

Interesting, I don't have the extreme ashing problem that cbc812 describes with the firebricks.

I just load it with unlit briquettes and about two fistfulls of smoke wood mixed in and toss about 20 lit briquettes on top and set my vents.

I'll need to make a few vent adjustments during the first hour of the cook, but usually after that, the firebrick has heated up and I can set the vent and it will hold for the next 4-5 hours or so.

If I need to clear ash, I just bang on the side of the kettle with my fist a few times and crank the vents over and back a few times to clear the ash from blocking the air slots.

Can't say I've noticed any more or less of a mess than I get in the other kettle that I use as a grill.

cbc,

cheap and idiotproof.

Either one of those attributes and I'm sold.

But BOTH? I need to get one right away!

Thanks for the input.

TG,

Great post.

That's the type of information I'm talking about.

Firebricks! Why didn't I think of that?

I noticed that you don't use the lower rack for smoking, but instead put a drip pan.

Is that because you don't need the room, or because the results aren't as good?

#2 You might want to help him get his money back from that Carnegie course.

RE #7

Welcome.

I don't think the results would be very good if the food was placed directly on the (lower) fire grate opposite the bricks and coals. Smoke/combustion gas w/ smokewood flavor exposure would be minimal, you would have to remove the foil from that side of the grate and this would allow quite a bit of cold air in on the wrong side of the fire area, you would have quite a bit of drippings running down into the vent area mixing with the ashes (not a big deal, just kind of messy).

On a 22" OTS you can fit a 6-8lb pork shoulder cut in easily (although an 8lb cut might require refilling the charcoal partway through the cook) maybe even larger, I've never had the need to cook anything over that size. You can put in a 6-7 lb beef chuck, a few racks of ribs depending on how you load them, probably get two whole chickens in there.

Some more shots (I have more photos, but they are hosted on a different forum, so I'll have to upload them to imageshack)

about a 4lb 7-bone chuck roast

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/391/chuck7boneroast1002326.jpg 

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1723/chuck7boneroast1002329.jpg 

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/2906/chuck7boneroast1002332.jpg 

Pork shoulder - 5 or 6 lbs IIRC

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2734/porkshoulder.jpg 

15 chicken thighs I smoked and shredded:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2632/bbqpulledchicken.jpg 

TG,

Chuck Roast?

I've never even heard of a smoked Chuck.

How do you prep it?

Of late, about a day before, coat it with worstichire sauce and rub, wrap it in saran wrap, put it in the refrigerator.

Beef chuck is the same cut as pork shoulder / boston butt, so BBQing procedure and temps are about the same. Although you can end up with cuts that are so stubborn they will take a few hours longer than expected, for pulled/shredded (makes for some great mexican food) when you can jam a fork in it and twist and it hind of feels like you're twisting the fork in a bowl of spaghetti, it's done.

If you foil wrap for the last few hours of the cook, I've found that I prefer to chill the "juice" and seperate off the fat/grease before returning the remainder of the liquid back to the shredded meat.

I say "Of late" because that's how I'm doing them right now, I might at some point get bored with this style/method and switch to something different again.

Boneless chuck, you can just coat with rub and then throw on and slice up almost like a poor-mans brisket when it's done.

"fork in a bowl of spaghetti"

Help me out here.

Is that al dente, or cafeteria mush?

al dente

al dente w/ no sauce or light marinara.

The baconator isn't bad