Getting my 1st smoker (WSM)- Now what?

One last thing, don't keep taking the lid off to peek. Sit on your hands and try to look until after the 1st two hours have passed then maybe hourly. You mentioned temp probes so just read them. It's HARD not to peek!

Ceciltucky? I had to look that up. You are pretty close to Wilmington so should have some pretty good butchers. I worked up that way for a couple months and liked the area, except for DuPont everything.

Got any Capriati's sub shops up your way? Yum.

Mikhail said:

Ceciltucky? I had to look that up. You are pretty close to Wilmington so should have some pretty good butchers. I worked up that way for a couple months and liked the area, except for DuPont everything.

Got any Capriati's sub shops up your way? Yum.

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Thanks for mentioning the location. I didn’t realize that ceciltucky was Cecil county MD. I used to race at Cecil county drag strip decades ago, and have eaten multiple times at Woodys Crab House.

I see you have another thread that you can’t find wood chunks.

North east Lowe’s on rt 40 and rt 272 has 7 bags of cowboy apple chunk in stock on isle 24 bay 15

Shadowdog500 said:

Thanks for mentioning the location. I didn’t realize that ceciltucky was Cecil county MD. I used to race at Cecil county drag strip decades ago, and have eaten multiple times at Woodys Crab House.

I see you have another thread that you can’t find wood chunks.

North east Lowe’s on rt 40 and rt 272 has 7 bags of cowboy apple chunk in stock on isle 24 bay 15

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I’ve done some time at the strip myself. Used to live about a mile away.

If you want to peek at the meat without removing the lid, just shine a flashlight through a top vent hole and peek in the other. Just move the light and your eye around to get a good view of things.

Welcome to the wonderful world of weber.

-Wrap the water pan in HD foil. Wrap it so that the "end" of the foil is on the outside bottom of the pan. IOW, put the pan on a surface and put foil over it and wrap it around to the bottom of the pan. Then, leave the pan empty. There's no need for anything in it.

-Use lump charcoal. It burns cleaner, allowing you to get the coveted TBS-thin blue smoke- sooner, so you can start cooking sooner, AND it will leave about 70% less ash. You will be able to get multiple cooks done w/o having to dump ash.

-When loading the charcoal ring w/ lump, put a "layer" in at a time and then press it down and around to minimize air gaps. I just do a light pressing with my foot. Pour some in, tamp it down. This will, imo, help keep temps more stable and lengthen the cook.

-I don't use a chimney/lit coals to start my WSM. After I get it filled with the lump, I make a little hole in the middle (deep enough to fit the cube) and put a Weber starter cube there and light it. After a minute or 2 I reassemble the WSM. Top vent open all the way (it's like that 99.9% of the time). The bottom vent position will be different for each WSM. I've owned 2 18s, a 14, and now use only a 22. One thing about all of them- starting out with 3 wide open vents proved to be too much air for a target of around 250+/-. For the past few years, I usually close 2 and open 1 (whichever is facing the wind, if there is one) less than a pencil width. This method generally gets me to 250-270. But, if I'm doing poultry, I let it rip- all 3 bottom vents open all the way all the time.

-Patience! :-D When I think back to when I first started on an 18...I had a notebook to log temp readings every 20 mins, noting the vent positions, how the smoke looked, etc. etc. I worried when the temp was +/- 10 degrees from what my "target" was...ahh, the good old days. There IS a learning curve, but as everyone has said, it's not a long one. So, if I could tell my back-then self anything, it would be to relax, drink more beer, and relax. :razz:

-For first cooks, naked fatties and/or picnic shoulders are great.

Enjoy!

crabjoe said:

Thanks! I have no idea how to use it. I haven't seen any actual instructions on it's use. About the only thing I've seen is how people use it in YT videos.

BTW, I still don't have the thing.. HD sent me a shipping notice the other day saying the estimated delivery was today.. They didn't actually ship it out the door till today.. I guess I won't see it till Monday now. I'm kind of pissed over that..

My 9yo son was excited to get this... and the odd thing is, I only told him I ordered it yesterday.. And now all he's asking is "what can we cook in it 1st? Can we cook beef and pork at the same time? I want some ribs." He's got me cracking up.

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Check out the virtual weber bullet: https://www.virtualweberbullet.com/

Lots of good information there. One word of caution, though. Don't follow their recommendation on how to start the fire. They say you should pour in a chimney full of lit coals, then dump unlit coals on top. If you do that, you'll be waiting forever for the smoke to clear up.

crabjoe said:

To be honest, I'm not sure I trust the info on that site. And it's because of what I found before and earlier today.

I had heard about seasoning a grill/smoker and when I looked it up, almost everyone says to do it. I'm just going to call this person the Guy, and I think he's the one that runs the site... He says to not bother. Ok.. I still want to season it, but if I get impatient, I might not.

Today when my WSM arrived, I went to put my WSM together and there's really no instructions on the actual assembly, not that it's hard. But what got me was these washers.. It came with normal metal washers and other "Fiber" washer... not sure what they're made of. I didn't know what washer went inside of the outside because the instructions were basically a picture... This got me googling and I found a Video by the guy who runs that site.

He basically says use the metal washers on the legs and "Fiber" washers on the outside for the brackets on the upper cylinder. But when I counted the washers, there were enough "Fiber" washers for every bolt.. And after looking at some other videos, I found the "Fiber" washers go on the outside and they're also used with every bolt, even on the legs... Oh, and he had the comments turned off on his assembly video, so no one can make any suggestions or just comment.

As for the seasoning... I'm pretty sure it's going to need to be done. The grates that came with it feel slippery, like there's something coating it. Maybe it's in my head, but it makes sense to me that Weber would coat them to make sure they don't rust. This did it for me and that site.

The site is specific to the WSM. You would think they would have had really good instructions for assembly, if nothing else.

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I don't remember mine coming with any fiber washers (purchased 2 1/2 years ago), so I'm wondering if that is something new.

Yeah, the grates are coated with some kind of packing oil to keep them from rusting. It washes off pretty easily. I still contend that there is no need to season the WSM. I did not get any "off" smells the first time I fired mine up.

One thing I would recommend, however, is putting lava lock gasket around the door opening (that is, if you don't buy one of those after market replacement doors). The factory door is cheap and ill-fitting and will leak a lot if you don't do something to seal it.

I guess with any of those kinds of third-party websites, you need to apply your common sense rather than just taking everything as gospel.

My two Weber smokey mountain cookers are older and don't have fiber washers.

your smoker should have come with a manual. Here is the manual for the 18". it does not mention fiber washers. https://weber.mizecx.com/retrieve/s...063129&Signature=HD5YwXMDIsKvXlpYsO7WgpWo3Bk=


Here is the latest manual for a 19" WSM (which I never heard of) and it does have fiber washers (along with instructions on where to put them). https://weber.mizecx.com/retrieve/s...063172&Signature=vOH0R0iSZePuEb7/Yw8+ypAXxKY=

I never needed a door gasket on my 18, it is tight enough. My 22" has a leaky door and i did buy a gasket kit but never installed it because my makeshift solution of using a bungee cord worked so well and I can wash the smoker thoroughly every spring. See photo below.


Before the first use I would give everything a good wash with dish soap and water to get the manufacturing and shipping oils off of the smoker. I usually do chicken as a first cook since it is cheap, you run a little hotter than normal which may burn off what you missed, and if there is and off taste from shipping oils, which shouldn’t happen, Tossing $8 worth of chicken isn’t a big deal.

I used to season my smokers but found it wasn't needed. There is a debate here, and other places, that seasoning is really just a dirty smoker. i wash mine thoroughly every year and get rid of the crap that accumulates. Would you cook in a pot that is used regularly but hasn't been washed in years?

Note the bungee.



Look how clean inside.

Why the fan assist? Are you doing just "hot and fast" cooks? On mine, hitting 275F isn't hard and I have at times run it at 325F all without air assistance though I have at times turned the base to catch a breeze for a heavily loaded WSM..

Sid Post said:

Why the fan assist? Are you doing just "hot and fast" cooks? On mine, hitting 275F isn't hard and I have at times run it at 325F all without air assistance though I have at times turned the base to catch a breeze for a heavily loaded WSM..

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That is an IQ-110 pit temp controller. It will keep your charcoal smoker at any temperature you set the dial to. I use It during all night smokes like brisket so I can get a good night sleep. I have done all night cooks without it, but prefer to use the temp controller when sleeping. I also have a pit and meat temp alarm next to my pillow in case the pit temp strays, of if the meat hits temp sooner than expected.

Shadowdog500 said:

That is an IQ-110 pit temp controller. It will keep your charcoal smoker at any temperature you set the dial to. I use It during all night smokes like brisket so I can get a good night sleep. I have done all night cooks without it, but prefer to use the temp controller when sleeping. I also have a pit and meat temp alarm next to my pillow in case the pit temp strays, of if the meat hits temp sooner than expected.

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I’ve got one also. LOVE it. Makes smoking as convenient as throwing something in the oven. Set it and forget it.