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O-Town
03-14-2010, 06:28 PM
OK, 3rd cook in the WSM and I decided to go waterless. My "non revenue generating partner" "aka" my wife has a pizza stone. I decided to wrap that bad boy up in foil and place it in my water pan (sans the water of course). Fire my WSM up minion method and caught my temp at 240. Placed 3 racks of spares on and away we went. Everything was good till about 3 hrs into the cook. At hr 3 I quickly moved the ribs to foil and placed them back to the smoker. I had 2 bottom vents closed and the 3rd at 1/4 open. After placing the foiled ribs in the WSM my temps shot from 240 to 275. I closed all the vents and was able to get the temps down to 265. Seeing how it was running hotter than I wanted I only left them foiled for 30 minutes. They came off OK, but a tad over done. I reckon my main question is this. Water or no water...and why?...Chris

PS. My first two cooks were with water and I was able to keep temps at and even 230 to 240.:confused:

Dave Russell
03-14-2010, 06:46 PM
Traditionalists, conservatives and (fill-in-the-blank)-preservationists prefer to put water in the pan to keep temps low....that is, if they want to cook low and slow.

Progressives, libs, and the like, prefer to buck the trend and go dry or use a clay pot bottom or pizza stone or ceramic tile or whatever.

Dave Russell
03-14-2010, 06:48 PM
Pay no attention to the above post. Just foolin' around....:icon_blush::-P:-D

Dave Russell
03-14-2010, 06:53 PM
Now seriously, if I want to go to sleep and leave the wsm unattended for an overnighter, I use water, and a lot of it, as mine is new and the pan seems to be huge.

However, I really think that the water in the pan is over-rated, and it can't add moisture to the meat, or these bbq competitors wouldn't be cooking with dry pans. They use stokers or gurus to moderate temps. I use the giant water pan. It just helps me sleep better....Maybe it's a placebo, but I sleep a little better that way than with my uds and no water pan.

MilitantSquatter
03-14-2010, 06:53 PM
I never used water in my WSM's when I had them... Just didn't think it was needed. For me, water just makes things more complicated.. Over a long cook the heat makes the water evaporate... If less water is there to get hot, the temp will re-direct itself elsewhere and could cause temps to climb.

As far as your experience today.. I don't think the stone was the problem as it was 3 hours in when the spike occured and seemed to be at the same time you put the ribs in...

How long did you have the lid open ? (May have allowed a lot of air to get in). Did you stir the coals at this time ?

O-Town
03-14-2010, 06:59 PM
I took them off one rack at a time. And no, I did not stir the coals. However my wife(the non revenue generating unit) reminds me now the wind did pick up a good bit then. So perhaps that is the reason for my spike.

Saiko
03-14-2010, 07:48 PM
At hr 3 I quickly moved the ribs to foil and placed them back to the smoker. I had 2 bottom vents closed and the 3rd at 1/4 open. After placing the foiled ribs in the WSM my temps shot from 240 to 275. I closed all the vents and was able to get the temps down to 265.

When using the minion method on the WMS, if you have the lid off for anything more than a few seconds you will get big temperature spikes. I couldn't tell from your post how long you had the lid off, but try to keep it down to a minimum. It also helps to close all your vents down a couple of minutes before lifting the lid to limit the amount of air that gets to your charcoal bed.

Couple of other comments:
Harry Soo, who was one of the competitors on Pitmasters, doesn't use any water in his WSM and has won plenty of competitions. He just foils his pan and uses a stoker to control temps.
And speaking of Harry, he smokes his ribs at 275 degrees, not 225, and he beat everybody on the pitmaster show in a rib cookoff. So don't panic if your temps hit 275. :-D

GreasePig
03-14-2010, 10:22 PM
I use water on longer cooks like pork butts but I typically just foil the pan empty on chicken and ribs.

Jeff Selle
03-14-2010, 10:47 PM
Wow, I can't believe I did the exact same thing tonight. Third cook on my new 22.5 WSM with three racks of spares (one of mine was beef, though.) And, actually, I was using Harry Soo's method at 275, and spiked hard to 325 after 2.5 to 3 hours. I foiled, too, and poured a little water (1/2 gallon) into the pan to cool things down to 275 again, but then it spiked again to 300, so pulled my foil after 40 minutes, mopped with sauce and went about 20 minutes at high heat and then rested them. Mine were a hit with family and friends... nice smoke, decent pull but not tender enough for what I believe to be competition grade ...

I ordered a stoker last week, and I should get it any day. I am hoping that helps. My first two attempts at ribs went six hours with a full water pan. Temps were stable all the way through, and the results were great... So Dave's recipe for sleep seems to have some merit for me...

And when not using water -- now that I think about it -- Saiko makes a lot of sense too. My lid was off for spritzing and curiosity (lots of company today) without adjusting bottom vents... I can't wait to see what a difference my new stoker makes...

bigabyte
03-15-2010, 12:58 AM
Traditionalists, conservatives and (fill-in-the-blank)-preservationists prefer to put water in the pan to keep temps low....that is, if they want to cook low and slow.

Progressives, libs, and the like, prefer to buck the trend and go dry or use a clay pot bottom or pizza stone or ceramic tile or whatever.
:rant2:

OK now, as someone who uses sand in their WSM pans, I feel it is my civic duty to refute the claims that this is something that is done by the farkin' left-wing liberal commie pinko tree-huggin camel-humpin climate-changin terrorist-kissin Lenin-lovin Chez-shaggin PETA-partnerin vegan douchebags!:mad:



In fact, it is quite the opposite. A traditionalist minded fellow would not rely on sources of water to manage their pit. They would simply dig a hole in the ground, toss in a bunch of logs and light them up until they were coals, and then put the meat over those glowing embers. No water pans.

Now, at some point in the late 20th century, somebody, probably European, decided that this was how to make a BBQ pit.
http://www.bbqlodge.com/my_toys/ecb_1.jpg

Now, as a typical big government liberal would do when they realize this does not work and the fires burn out of control ruining your meat, they "add more" to the already flawed design. So they put a water pan in the unit to block the searing flames form touching the meat, and felt that having water int he way would keep the pit at 212 degrees, or as those farking Euro-libs would call it 100 degrees C, the C is for COMMIE PINKO!:mad2: The funny thing is, as that fire burns out of control due to sucking all the air out of the world with their huge socialist desire to burn up your tax dollars, er, I mean fuel, you can stick a probe down in there at grate level and the temps are well above the boiling point of water. Why is that? Because it was designed by a liberal.:loco:

OK, back to our show already in progress.

O-Town
03-15-2010, 06:26 AM
:rant2:

OK now, as someone who uses sand in their WSM pans, I feel it is my civic duty to refute the claims that this is something that is done by the farkin' left-wing liberal commie pinko tree-huggin camel-humpin climate-changin terrorist-kissin Lenin-lovin Chez-shaggin PETA-partnerin vegan douchebags!:mad:





.

So I can put you down as a definite no on water ...right? :biggrin1:

bigabyte
03-15-2010, 08:38 AM
So I can put you down as a definite no on water ...right? :biggrin1:
That would be the shorter version of my response, yes!:biggrin1:

Water, Pizza Stones, Sand, they all serve a similar effect, that of being a heat sink. Water has a much different effect however, it heats up faster than the other two, and also does not retain it's heat as long as the other two. So as a heat sink, the other two options work better. It is normal when using my sand pans to have to adjust my air vents again a few hours into the cook to avoid another temp spike as that sand is fully heated and the fuel keeps burning. It will not keep going like this forever, all you are doing is compensating for the difference that used to be there by a cooler sand pan than the fire.

Bluesman
03-15-2010, 08:42 AM
Used water on my first cook and it was a mess to clean up. Now I foil and go.

HeSmellsLikeSmoke
03-15-2010, 08:44 AM
I'm a sandman. Sand in the water pan, wrapped in foil. MUCH easier to clean up.

O-Town
03-15-2010, 09:13 AM
Well, I am going to continue using the foiled stone for now. Hopefully now that I have a few cooks in the new WSM temps will be easier to manage from now on. Gonna try a overnight butt on Saturday!

Dave Russell
03-15-2010, 11:39 AM
That would be the shorter version of my response, yes!:biggrin1:

Water, Pizza Stones, Sand, they all serve a similar effect, that of being a heat sink. Water has a much different effect however, it heats up faster than the other two, and also does not retain it's heat as long as the other two. So as a heat sink, the other two options work better. It is normal when using my sand pans to have to adjust my air vents again a few hours into the cook to avoid another temp spike as that sand is fully heated and the fuel keeps burning. It will not keep going like this forever, all you are doing is compensating for the difference that used to be there by a cooler sand pan than the fire.


Thanks for the rant and perspective, Bigabyte! I'll probably be converted to water soon enough.... as soon as I have enough confidence in cooking "dry" to go to bed and not worry about it.

I know the water does nothing to add moisture to the meat, and I know that competitors don't use it, at least those that use Stokers or Gurus don't. :wink:

I just don't understand why other heat sinks would help as well as the water pan when they continue to get hotter than 212 F, like the rest of the pit. My new wsm has a HUGE water pan that keeps water for entire cooks and doesn't need to be refilled except for really long butt cooks. Targeting 240 at the vent, once the water heats up and the chill is off the meat, it seems to be all good (as long as the coals aren't getting too much oxygen to make the water boil off too quickly, I suppose). The water goes down, but the fuel supply does too.

I'm a pretty simple guy, so I'm all ears to simple explanations as to why a pile of sand or whatever will help keep temps low and slow just as well as a pool of 212 degree water.

Sure, I use more fuel, but it's cheap. Nobody ever mentions my main complaint of the water pan: When the pan is simmering or steaming, at least under some ambient conditions I've cooked at so far, the water vapor makes it harder for me to tell what kind of smoke I'm getting. I'm pretty new to this wsm stuff, though. Regardless of your thoughts on it, THANKS a bunch! There's no sense in endless arguments at least being a little entertaining, huh? That's what I like about this site!:clap2:

Dave
wsm, uds, wots, wsj, char-griller

Goddahavit
03-15-2010, 11:50 AM
Just learn your vents and temps, never used water in the cooker from day 1 I use a 12 inch clay pot base foiled.

I know where the vents need to be to hold temps, and I myself like the 3 open just a tad, unless im getting wind from 1 side.

Wind will make the temps spike quick, I cut a 4x8 sheet of plywood up to make a windbreak, works well enough

Most important have fun, that's what its about to me.....

Just never made sense to burn xtra fuel to boil water? and then have the cleanup? Once you get the waterless system dialed in you will love it.
I often do overnighters and sleep just fine...

Its not the heat sink that keeps the fire low, its the air, control that and its all gravy.....

Saiko
03-15-2010, 12:35 PM
I just don't understand why other heat sinks would help as well as the water pan when they continue to get hotter than 212 F, like the rest of the pit.

I can't speak for everybody, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people who use heat sinks other than water do so simply for one reason: Ease of clean up. After about the 4th or 5th time of staring down at a waterpan filled with greasy, smelly, congealed goop, most of us start thinking to ourselves, "there has to be a better way".

It's not that sand is a better heat sink, it's an "easier to clean up" heat sink. :grin:

Dave Russell
03-15-2010, 12:51 PM
No matter how you do it, clean-up's not a problem with a wsm, guys! It's just a cooker, right?

jason
03-15-2010, 02:25 PM
Last weekend, I did ribs and butts on my 22 WSM with nothing in the water pan. I held 225F all day long with minimal adjustments needed. This was the 2nd time I tried having nothing in the water pan.

The first time I tried going without water in the pan was shortly after I first got my WSM. I fought with temps all day for that cook.

Dave Russell
03-15-2010, 09:10 PM
Last weekend, I did ribs and butts on my 22 WSM with nothing in the water pan. I held 225F all day long with minimal adjustments needed. This was the 2nd time I tried having nothing in the water pan.

The first time I tried going without water in the pan was shortly after I first got my WSM. I fought with temps all day for that cook.

Cool, but can you do these "minimal adjustments" in bed asleep? I cook butts about two hours a pound or so in my wsm, so cooking all day is out of the queastion. It's an all nighter, and I'm not stayin' up past Letterman. I've cooked on an uds with NO pan for a few years now, and know that "minor adjustments" can mean the difference between 250 or 300. Just sayin'.....Why go dry when you want it low, anyway? Pack w/ fuel, fill the pan, and smoke away.....set it and forget it...no worries!

JD McGee
03-15-2010, 09:38 PM
I use water for low-n-slow...no water for high heat...no problems...:cool:

bigabyte
03-15-2010, 09:49 PM
I can't speak for everybody, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people who use heat sinks other than water do so simply for one reason: Ease of clean up. After about the 4th or 5th time of staring down at a waterpan filled with greasy, smelly, congealed goop, most of us start thinking to ourselves, "there has to be a better way".

It's not that sand is a better heat sink, it's an "easier to clean up" heat sink. :grin:
I couldn't have said it better myself. As for heating the heat sink beyond 212, as long as you don't let your cooker run too hot, you want to get the heat sink heated to the temp you want to cook at basically. That's why adjustments are necessary after the heat sink heats up. I like sand because I never have to replace it, it keeps the heat going a lot longer when the coals are on their last legs, and it is as simple as taking off the foil to clean it up.

tmkshew
03-16-2010, 11:31 AM
I just got my WSM. I use water a lot. It's easy to add water to reduce the temp when it gets too high. I like to cook my spareribs at around 230 F, sometimes a little lower.

Low and slow, that is the tempo.

As for using clay or stone, I'm not sure. But any time I have used water I've never had anything turn out too dry.

Jay Bird
03-16-2010, 05:56 PM
I can't speak for everybody, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people who use heat sinks other than water do so simply for one reason: Ease of clean up. After about the 4th or 5th time of staring down at a waterpan filled with greasy, smelly, congealed goop, most of us start thinking to ourselves, "there has to be a better way".

It's not that sand is a better heat sink, it's an "easier to clean up" heat sink. :grin:

I'm totaly with you on this. For me it's a clay saucer in the water pan & then foil over the top of the pan. When the cook is done a simple removal of foil & a trip to the trash. No muss no fuss.