Mini WSM Extended

TALEG8R BBQ said:

How tall is the expanded steel for your basket; are you using the charcoal grate from your sjg & running the basket up to the bottom of the cooking grate? Thx.

Click to expand...

I used a 3 inch strip of expanded welded to the charcoal grate and that does stop just short of the normal placement of the SJG cooking grate. Too tall IMHO next one I would go with only 2 1/2 in tall.

Trial run

First test - a fatty


Started with @ 9 lit and some wood



@ 30 min in getting to temp, smoke getting thinner, bottom chamber cooler than top


@ 1.5 - 2 hours, fatty a bit over done, smoke thin and blue, no leaks, but top is now cooler then bottom. A bit unexpected

I did a cook of 6 Tri tips a week or some later and the top and bottom were within 10 degrees or so of each other but the cook turned out great. It was nice to do a reverse sear right on the smoky joe. Loving my first weber

Expanding on the expanded idea

Bigger is better, isn't it?

Since the tamale pots are all separate and the lids are bolted to the bottom of the pots this can be very versatile. Use the number of pots needed to hold the food to be smoked. The caution is to not overload the stock legs.


Three pots makes it taller than a UDS
But it rocks as it cooks, using the standard legs


So until I get the legs worked out

The pots stack very well and did not leak between each other. They are sturdy as they sit on both the silver or gold. With 3 pots I have 8 cooking grids (3 on the top 2, 2 on the bottom pot. All the pots have bolts at 3 inches and 7 inches , from the top rim, and I put a grate where the steamer tray goes.

I did a chicken using the three pots, placing it in the center pot, all the pots held temp well and didn't create any problems. Except the whole thing swayed slightly if I tried cooking it in the top pot only with the stock legs.

For the silver I used a small imsa cup that I found at Walmart near the tamale pots. It was @ $2 I cut it down to fit under the charcoal grate and punch holes in it with a step drill. It's held up through 2 cooks so far but it's aluminum just like the tamale pot maybe a gage lighter, so ill see how long it will last.