What's with the clay saucer?

[mowse73]

Hi all.
thx for the advice i have received so far.

I notice people on this site talking about using a clay saucer, water or sand to maintain temp.
I am slightly confused, I thought people put water in a pan next to the meat to promote moisture.
Do you put water in next to the meat as well?


thx Martin

[Swindon_Ed]

I've found the water doesn't add any moisture that i've noticed, i've seen some people saying that water is recomended as a heat barrier as water will only go up to a certain temp's which protects the meat and maintains a lower temp'. I don't know how much of this is true but would make sense to me.

Personally i use a clay saucer as i get better control from the vents and can cook hot when i want to.

[Steve]

Water just acts as a heat sink, helping to stabilise temperatures. I don't hold with the moisture argument personally and it certainly won't put a hard limit on your temperatures although it does make it very difficult to get up high.

For me using water is a pita as it requires topping up, makes for more clean up and doesn't offer the same stability that using clay does. I'll stick with clay

[mowse73]

thx guys

[Vic.]

water boils at 212 °F, so if you're temp is above that, you'll have moisture on the meat.

[Steve]

Water boiling off from the water pan will make the cooking chamber more moist but what I've found is that this doesn't affect the moistness of the end product.

[ped]

Do you just put the clay saucer in the water pan?

[Swindon_Ed]

Yep, but try to make sure that the saucer fits to the edge of the water pan and if you wrap it in foil it will make cleaning a lot easier as well.

[ped]

Why to the edge of the water pan Ed?

[ped]

Understood, many thanks