My new, 1st ever, WSM BBQ

[Gary Morris]

It arrived today!! My 47cm 18.5" WSM

What more could anyone want, new BBQ, warm sunny weather and good friends. Dad's in the living room constructing it as we speak supervised by Peewee the parrot, he's 88 and doing well, my Dad, Peewee is about 4 and judging from my Dad's language, may be the first subject for a trial run. Have to go, Dad wants his nuts tightening.

Gary

[keith157]

Good luck mate, lets hope the weather holds out......check on here for any hints about seasoning your WSM. I don't know if you have to but they advised it for my ProQ to get rid of any factory gunk etc.

[Gary Morris]

Thanks Keith, I read about it somewhere on here, but I'll do a 'search' and learn as much as possible, I think the one I read said to fire it up, full load but don't add any food - it will burn off any residue, as you said.

[NomNomBBQ]

Enjoy mate, ahh that new weber smell

[PeanutZA]

Every day I come and lurk (not just for the womans) on these forums and every day I have to talk my self out of ordering a wsm.

I recon this is what happens for eternity if you don't say your prayers.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[keith157]

A lot of us can't afford the WSM so use ProQs. You don't have to have the best to enjoy good results

[Steve]

The WSM is only a cheapie anyway

But you can turn out fantastic food on it, as you can with a ProQ too.

[Gary Morris]

Peanut, it's not what you have, it's the way you use it, combined with research, confidence and ability.

[Gary Morris]

I'd read, and the instructions said also, to 'season' the bbq, so this is what I did.

Got it set up and filled the grate in a pyramid style with Sainsbury's brickettes plus 3 fire lighters with all vents open fully, started at 8:25 - outside temp 74°f.
It caught really well, so I spread the lit coals and put the two top pieces on and added 1.5 ltrs of water to the water dish.

This was at 9:15 and had reached 215°f - outside temp 65°f

at this point I half closed the bottom vents, but left the top one fully open to let the smoke and gasses out. I'd read that it's best to make these changes as the temp rose as opposed to falling. - my goal temp was 225°f

At 9:20 the temp had got to 225°f, so about 1hr from start. Checked it at 10 min (approx) intervals and it remained steady at 225°f until,

At 10:15 240°f At 10:25 250°f At 10:55 260°f At 10:15 240°f At 11:15 270°f At 11:25 270°f
It rose steadily to 340° at 1:30 It then started to go down, I guess It was out of fuel.

The temp rise (I am guessing at this) was due to the water running dry?
The lid remained on throughout.

The last temp recorded was at 3:30 and was 300°f I would have recorded more but Dad wanted beer can chicken on Sunday and had bought a 4 pack of Special Brew, well I thought I'd try one and considering I don't useually drink at all, but after the first can the rest tasted OK, I fell asleep in the shed and awoke at 5:30 and it was still going strong. (didn't take the temp.)

Next I have to cook.