Vince RnQ
is Blowin Smoke!
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2007
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ
For those of you who don't know us or haven't seen our cooking set up at a competition, we are an all WSM team. With the exception of our first event at Lake Pleasant in 2006 where we used a Weber Kettle and a Bar-B-Chef offset, all of our cooks have been done using 4 WSMs. We used the same 4 cookers for the 2007 and 2008 seasons and the wear and tear of all the travel, loading, unloading and being jostled about in transit finally caught up with them and the most polite way of putting it is that they're not what they were when they came out of their boxes two years ago.
That being the case and knowing that Weber had redesigned the 18.5" WSM as they rolled out their new 22.5" WSM, we decided that we should invest in a new set of cookers for the 2009 season. We decided to go with the 18.5" model instead of the 22.5" model mostly because of space concerns needed for transit. There were a few other considerations but space was the primary concern.
Last week I was browsing at Amazon and saw that they had dropped the price on the new 18.5" WSMs down to $259 each with free shipping from their normal price of $299 each with free shipping. That was all we needed so we "pulled the trigger" and ordered four, three of which arrived yesterday. Now that you have the backstory, on to the review...
Parts & Assembly
If you've ever purchased anything from Weber, you know that their products are extremely well packaged for shipping and this item is no exception: Lots of bubble wrap and cardboard bracing inside to protect the contents. The parts are well packaged and easily identified. All the nuts, bolts and washers are in a single package, the legs and grill brackets are in a box and most of the remaining items, including the door, are wrapped in either plastic, paper or bubble wrap. Assembly instructions are simple and the cooker will take less than an hour to put together with only a screwdriver and a wrench needed to do the job.
Initial Comments Upon Completion of Assembly
The first and, in my opinion, best improvement over the old version are the legs. The new legs are almost twice as wide as the old legs and they flare out slightly, maybe 1.5"-2", giving the cooker a much more stable platform. They still attach to the charcoal bowl the same way but the new version also includes a "heat shield" which rides between the three legs and about 2" below the bottom of the charcoal bowl. The heat shield is really nothing more than an ash catcher tray from a 18.5" Weber One Touch Silver grill and it attaches to , well, more like "rests" on, the legs via three notches. It will easily pop out and doesn't provide any added stability to the platform. I've left it on for now but I can't see it lasting there for very long. (Meaning the first time it pops out of the notches is when it comes off for good!) The rest of the bowl portion of the cooker, including charcoal grate, charcoal chamber and lower vents, are all identical to the older model WSM.
There are two significant changes to the middle section of the cooker, those being the door and the water pan. The new door has an oblong handle instead of a knob which makes it much easier to see the correct position for both open and closed positions and there are a series of tabs in the bottom of the door which helps to keep the door from falling out of the cooker when opened. In fact, it hangs in at about a 45° angle which is great for peeking in or when needing to add a chunk of wood to the fire. The water pan is shaped like a smaller version of the charcoal bowl meaning that it is much deeper than the old style pan which is much more shallow. The pan will hold a lot more water but will also ride much lower/closer to the fire. I've always recommended wrapping the outside/bottom of the water pan in a layer of aluminum foil to protect the finish and to make clean up easier and the new bowl shape will make that job a bit tougher as a single sheet of wide foil will not cover it completely. This is a minor thing but one worth noting as the water pan is often the most soiled portion of the cooker after use.
The only change in the dome lid of the new 18.5" WSM is the addition of a temperature gauge directly opposite the vent. It's mounted into the lid through a pre-drilled hole and fastened down with a wing nut making it easy to remove and to keep clean. The bad news is that it does not appear to be very accurate. I haven't removed it and tested it in an ice bath or boiling water yet but I did insert the probe from my Thermapen into the vent opening, positioning it at the same depth as the stem of the lid thermometer and the reading was off by over 40°F, meaning the lid thermometer was over 40°F lower than the reading on the Thermapen. I plan to test the lid thermometer on the next cooker I assemble to see how it fares in the aforementioned ice bath and boiling water. I also want to see if they can be calibrated. If they can't, they're pretty much useless.
First Cook - 1/2 Chicken
What good is having a new cooker if you don't use it right away? We needed to do a practice run on IBCA 1/2 Chicken for the upcoming competition in Tempe and this seemed like a good initial test. I had already installed the extras I needed to attach my Stoker to the WSM so all that need to happen was to fire that sucker up! I don't plan on going into any details of the actual chicken preparation but rather intend to focus on the performance of the cooker.
The first thing I noticed was how tightly the cooker fit together at the intersection of the charcoal bowl and the center section. There were no gaps and I saw almost no smoke escaping around the seam during the cook, even with a 10cfm fan blowing air into the system. There was also little or no air leaking from the closed vents in the charcoal bowl.
The door fit pretty well on this cooker in the "handle at the top" position with only a small amount of smoke leaking out when the Stoker fan was on. There was no smoke leaking out when the fan was off. I always ran my old WSMs with the knob at the bottom as there always seemed to be less air loss that way. That doesn't seem necessary anymore. Also, the new oblong handle is a great improvement over the know and the clasp on the inside is also of better design and larger than the old style. The only thing I might do is add a layer of high temperature gasket material around the inside of the door just to make that seal as tight as possible. It isn't a necessity but will certainly help make the cooker as air tight as possible.
On to the dome lid. If you've used a Weber Kettle or WSM brand new out of the box before you know that the porcelain coating on all the parts makes for a pretty slippery seal. The dome lid and the center section of the cooker never seal up very well until there is a good layer of barbeque gunk (sorry for the highly technical terminology) on them. There was a lot of smoke leaking out of this seam even though the lid and the body matched up well. I know from experience that this will become less of a problem after a couple of cooks.
Although this was only a short cook, the smoker came up to temperature very quickly, (the Stoker helps a lot with that), and, more importantly, held temperature with very little attention from me. Overall, the performance was excellent.
Second Cook - Pork Butt
We needed to cook up some pork for a few people and so this morning I clean out the smoker from last night's cook and re-fired it. We seasoned up four pork butts, each weighing in at about 7 lbs., and I put them into the cooker with two on the bottom grate and two on the top grate. I've done this before with the old cookers and they always had a hard time coming up to temperature and then holding temperature with that much meat in them. Not so today. I attribute that more to this cooker being new and all the seals being pretty tight while the old cookers had become pretty leaky. They've been running for a number of hours now and again the temperature is rock steady.
I'm liking the new cooker.
That being the case and knowing that Weber had redesigned the 18.5" WSM as they rolled out their new 22.5" WSM, we decided that we should invest in a new set of cookers for the 2009 season. We decided to go with the 18.5" model instead of the 22.5" model mostly because of space concerns needed for transit. There were a few other considerations but space was the primary concern.
Last week I was browsing at Amazon and saw that they had dropped the price on the new 18.5" WSMs down to $259 each with free shipping from their normal price of $299 each with free shipping. That was all we needed so we "pulled the trigger" and ordered four, three of which arrived yesterday. Now that you have the backstory, on to the review...
Parts & Assembly
If you've ever purchased anything from Weber, you know that their products are extremely well packaged for shipping and this item is no exception: Lots of bubble wrap and cardboard bracing inside to protect the contents. The parts are well packaged and easily identified. All the nuts, bolts and washers are in a single package, the legs and grill brackets are in a box and most of the remaining items, including the door, are wrapped in either plastic, paper or bubble wrap. Assembly instructions are simple and the cooker will take less than an hour to put together with only a screwdriver and a wrench needed to do the job.
Initial Comments Upon Completion of Assembly
The first and, in my opinion, best improvement over the old version are the legs. The new legs are almost twice as wide as the old legs and they flare out slightly, maybe 1.5"-2", giving the cooker a much more stable platform. They still attach to the charcoal bowl the same way but the new version also includes a "heat shield" which rides between the three legs and about 2" below the bottom of the charcoal bowl. The heat shield is really nothing more than an ash catcher tray from a 18.5" Weber One Touch Silver grill and it attaches to , well, more like "rests" on, the legs via three notches. It will easily pop out and doesn't provide any added stability to the platform. I've left it on for now but I can't see it lasting there for very long. (Meaning the first time it pops out of the notches is when it comes off for good!) The rest of the bowl portion of the cooker, including charcoal grate, charcoal chamber and lower vents, are all identical to the older model WSM.
There are two significant changes to the middle section of the cooker, those being the door and the water pan. The new door has an oblong handle instead of a knob which makes it much easier to see the correct position for both open and closed positions and there are a series of tabs in the bottom of the door which helps to keep the door from falling out of the cooker when opened. In fact, it hangs in at about a 45° angle which is great for peeking in or when needing to add a chunk of wood to the fire. The water pan is shaped like a smaller version of the charcoal bowl meaning that it is much deeper than the old style pan which is much more shallow. The pan will hold a lot more water but will also ride much lower/closer to the fire. I've always recommended wrapping the outside/bottom of the water pan in a layer of aluminum foil to protect the finish and to make clean up easier and the new bowl shape will make that job a bit tougher as a single sheet of wide foil will not cover it completely. This is a minor thing but one worth noting as the water pan is often the most soiled portion of the cooker after use.
The only change in the dome lid of the new 18.5" WSM is the addition of a temperature gauge directly opposite the vent. It's mounted into the lid through a pre-drilled hole and fastened down with a wing nut making it easy to remove and to keep clean. The bad news is that it does not appear to be very accurate. I haven't removed it and tested it in an ice bath or boiling water yet but I did insert the probe from my Thermapen into the vent opening, positioning it at the same depth as the stem of the lid thermometer and the reading was off by over 40°F, meaning the lid thermometer was over 40°F lower than the reading on the Thermapen. I plan to test the lid thermometer on the next cooker I assemble to see how it fares in the aforementioned ice bath and boiling water. I also want to see if they can be calibrated. If they can't, they're pretty much useless.
First Cook - 1/2 Chicken
What good is having a new cooker if you don't use it right away? We needed to do a practice run on IBCA 1/2 Chicken for the upcoming competition in Tempe and this seemed like a good initial test. I had already installed the extras I needed to attach my Stoker to the WSM so all that need to happen was to fire that sucker up! I don't plan on going into any details of the actual chicken preparation but rather intend to focus on the performance of the cooker.
The first thing I noticed was how tightly the cooker fit together at the intersection of the charcoal bowl and the center section. There were no gaps and I saw almost no smoke escaping around the seam during the cook, even with a 10cfm fan blowing air into the system. There was also little or no air leaking from the closed vents in the charcoal bowl.
The door fit pretty well on this cooker in the "handle at the top" position with only a small amount of smoke leaking out when the Stoker fan was on. There was no smoke leaking out when the fan was off. I always ran my old WSMs with the knob at the bottom as there always seemed to be less air loss that way. That doesn't seem necessary anymore. Also, the new oblong handle is a great improvement over the know and the clasp on the inside is also of better design and larger than the old style. The only thing I might do is add a layer of high temperature gasket material around the inside of the door just to make that seal as tight as possible. It isn't a necessity but will certainly help make the cooker as air tight as possible.
On to the dome lid. If you've used a Weber Kettle or WSM brand new out of the box before you know that the porcelain coating on all the parts makes for a pretty slippery seal. The dome lid and the center section of the cooker never seal up very well until there is a good layer of barbeque gunk (sorry for the highly technical terminology) on them. There was a lot of smoke leaking out of this seam even though the lid and the body matched up well. I know from experience that this will become less of a problem after a couple of cooks.
Although this was only a short cook, the smoker came up to temperature very quickly, (the Stoker helps a lot with that), and, more importantly, held temperature with very little attention from me. Overall, the performance was excellent.
Second Cook - Pork Butt
We needed to cook up some pork for a few people and so this morning I clean out the smoker from last night's cook and re-fired it. We seasoned up four pork butts, each weighing in at about 7 lbs., and I put them into the cooker with two on the bottom grate and two on the top grate. I've done this before with the old cookers and they always had a hard time coming up to temperature and then holding temperature with that much meat in them. Not so today. I attribute that more to this cooker being new and all the seals being pretty tight while the old cookers had become pretty leaky. They've been running for a number of hours now and again the temperature is rock steady.
I'm liking the new cooker.
