castlepines
is Blowin Smoke!
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2013
- Location
- Colorado
So I bought the WSM 18.5 a couple months ago after debating which size to get, asking the usual questions and picturing the various scenarios for its use. For our needs the 18.5 seemed fine, and it has been for the most part.
Fast forward to yesterday...it's the boy's birthday, and on the kids' birthday they can have whatever they want for their birthday dinner. The boy says he wants ribs, so ribs it is. We had some friends and family coming over so I prepared 3 racks of spares for everyone along with some smoked cheesy potatoes. It was painful and not ideal.
I have a rib rack so I used the top grate for the 3. Even with the rack I still had to bend a couple of the ribs to fit on the top. And when I got the color I wanted and foiled? Forget it. They wouldn't fit in the rack and I had to lean the three on one another while I cooked the potatoes on the bottom grate. Kind of aggravating, really.
The deciding factor for me in choosing the size was fuel usage. Yes, you will use more fuel with the 22.5, but getting a smaller ring would help for the smaller cooks, and the 400 pounds of Kingsford that I got on sale for $50 at HD during their big sale a bit ago makes it even easier to tolerate more fuel usage. In all, I really wish I would have gotten the bigger size. It would really save some agvravation and offer more choices for more tyoes of cooks.
Fast forward to yesterday...it's the boy's birthday, and on the kids' birthday they can have whatever they want for their birthday dinner. The boy says he wants ribs, so ribs it is. We had some friends and family coming over so I prepared 3 racks of spares for everyone along with some smoked cheesy potatoes. It was painful and not ideal.
I have a rib rack so I used the top grate for the 3. Even with the rack I still had to bend a couple of the ribs to fit on the top. And when I got the color I wanted and foiled? Forget it. They wouldn't fit in the rack and I had to lean the three on one another while I cooked the potatoes on the bottom grate. Kind of aggravating, really.
The deciding factor for me in choosing the size was fuel usage. Yes, you will use more fuel with the 22.5, but getting a smaller ring would help for the smaller cooks, and the 400 pounds of Kingsford that I got on sale for $50 at HD during their big sale a bit ago makes it even easier to tolerate more fuel usage. In all, I really wish I would have gotten the bigger size. It would really save some agvravation and offer more choices for more tyoes of cooks.