Direct wood fire cooking in WSM - Lots of Pics!

[blazinfire]

Hello everyone! So for whatever reason I ordered a rotisserie kit for the WSM. The WSM was in pretty rough shape. Hasn't been used for more than few months. Had to scrape all the gunk out, sprayed it with the flame thrower.

Since I prefer cooking with wood, I wanted to try cooking with a wood fire over direct heat in the WSM in prep for the rotisserie coming! Works like a Charm. This has been the most fun cooking I've hate for a while. Everything cooked perfectly.

I used the chainsaw to cut the splits I use on my vertical offset in half and I split those pieces with an axe. It didn't take very much wood to keep a hot fire. I probably only used 2-4 splits full size splits total.

Here's the pics!

Here's the set up. I ran the bottom dampers wide open. Thanks to a brethren for the info they suggested Propping the lid a couple pieces of wood to allow for my air flow. Boy they were right! Worked like a charm.

Clean burning fire

First I started off with chicken thighs. I rubbed them with Weber BBQ Dry smoking rub. (awesome stuff). I have no idea how long it took to cook. I know it was within 45 minutes. I checked the grate temp before putting the chicken on and the grate was at 400 degrees.

Here's the chicken after coming off the grill. First time cooking like this got a little char on a couple. Learned I should of flipped them a bit more often.

Next up since I had a good fire going I threw on chicken wings. Seasoned with Twisted Q's Crazy chicken seasoning. The missus Likes it but said she probably would of preferred the Weber rub this time around. Other than that she said it was killer!

Got nice color going! Learned from my mistakes and rotated/flipped the wings a little more often. Still took less than 45 minutes to cook the wings. Cooking pretty hot!

Finished chicken wings! Love the color!

Well I still had a good fire going! I had requests for a hamburger instead of chicken and corn on the cob for a side! Threw them on the cooker wanted to see if cooking burgers and stuff would be viable. I added two pieces of wood and kept the Lid off the cooker. It allowed for more air flow, the fire just kissed the corn and burgers.

This was the last picture I took before my camera dying! Burgers turned out great! I can't wait to try steak cooking like this!

Thanks for looking!

 

[ssv3]

Food looks great and really moist. Nice!

 

[BillN]

Looks like everything turned out great. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Fwismoker]

WSM/007 hybrid! lol Nothing beats cooking over a fire! :clap:

 

[bwram1]

Looks great! :thumb:

Nice to see I ain't the only one that uses the WSM as a stickburner. The only difference is that use shorter splits and a 12x12x6 fire basket in place of the ring.

 

[blazinfire]

WSM/007 hybrid! lol Nothing beats cooking over a fire! :clap:

Hey, I'll say this, if the 007 cooks anywhere near the WSM did today, I believe that's a great way to cook! I tried cooking without the lid raised, and it did cause problems keeping a good fire burning. Hand's down the best chicken I've ever cooked and ate. Once I got it figured out there's no way you could screw up. chicken was moist.

Well see how it rocks with wood when the rotisserie comes!

Looks great! :thumb:

Nice to see I ain't the only one that uses the WSM as a stickburner. The only difference is that use shorter splits and a 12x12x6 fire basket in place of the ring.

Well WSM works great as a stick burner I guess. This is the first time doing it won't be the last. Probably my go to method now for grilling. I would like to find a pan or something to work as a deflector maybe for slow cooking. Looking at it, it would be hard to add wood with the water pan being the deflector!

But Direct heat worked fantastic. I did have the cooking grates at like 600 degree's at one point. Wonder if this extreme heat could harm the WSM?

 

[bwram1]

Burning pecan splits in the WSM is my go to method for chicken parts. For whole birds, I spatch 'em and cook indirect on the kettle using lump and pecan chunks. Either way, I get the best tasting bird I ever had!

 

[blazinfire]

Burning pecan splits in the WSM is my go to method for chicken parts. For whole birds, I spatch 'em and cook indirect on the kettle using lump and pecan chunks. Either way, I get the best tasting bird I ever had!

I'm really excited to see the rotisserie kit. Got the Cajun Bandit rotisserie Kit with Octoforks coming this week hopefully, if not the next week. Depending on how shipping goes with the holiday and everything.. I can't wait to see if I have enough room to cook on the grate, and rotisserie.

Probably end up being my go to method for up to 2 birds. any more birds than that I'll throw in the vertical offset.

 

[cheez59]

Mighty fine looking bird there Brandon.

 

[ronbrad62]

Great cook. I really like seeing innovative cooking methods, showing that anything is possible.

 

[mrbill]

hhmmm, had thought of doing a pure wood cook w/my wsm before, now i am.

 

[Titch]

Food looks great mate, we use wood splits in the Weber Kettle,lid off

 

[mchar69]

Looks really tasty, I'm gonna try oak I have in the UDS...

 

[Smoke Dawg]

Do not fear the flame!

 

[mbshop]

My wife would have loved that char. She always tells me I don't burn the meat enough ! May try that on mine.

 

[blazinfire]

hhmmm, had thought of doing a pure wood cook w/my wsm before, now i am.

My wood splits are cut roughly 16" for the vertical offset. I cut these "roughly" in half and split them into small splits. I fed the fire through the Door. I learned very early on that you are sticking your hand under hot food dripping onto the fire! I have a pair of heavy duty Tongs I use for stoking and maintaining my fire in the offset. I used those to throw the wood on the fire.

I could of easily used a lot less wood than I did. I also started my fire with a hand full of charcoal and staked wood around it. That was to much fire once it started burning good. But once it died down, I only added 2-3 pieces of wood to cook for each portion.

My wife would have loved that char. She always tells me I don't burn the meat enough ! May try that on mine.

I don't mind the char, Just not when the entire piece of skin is charred to a crisp. The wings could of used a little char like the thighs. Not exactly sure why the wings didn't cook like the thighs did. Maybe I was flipping the wings to much? Not a hot enough fire?