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Tips & Techniques for Using Your Weber Smokey Mountain Water Smoker
These are the smokers I was using when I first (finally) figured out how to do really good ribs. The most difficult part of doing good ribs is cooking long and slow while keeping the meat moist. I only graduated to the Southern Pride commercial smoker when I couldn't keep up with demand trying to cook for a larger crowd. With rib racks, each Smokey Mountain can comfortably do 8 racks at a time (and I had 4 of them). My Southern Pride can do 80 racks at a time. The tricks I discuss here are what I learned from other veteran BBQ-ers and tested and perfected for myself.
Grill Assembly
• Follow the directions found in the Owner’s Guide for assembly.
• One modification is suggested: Drill a 1/2” diameter hole in the center of the bottom bowl. Water will condense inside the smoker as the hot steam inside meets the metal shell of the smoker that is being cooled by cooler outside air. The result is water collecting in the bottom bowl. Without the drain hole suggested here, an 8-hour smoking session can collect as much as a 2” deep pool in the bottom bowl. Once water collects under the fire, the fire cools off as the smaller burning coals drop through the fire grate and into the water (rather than onto a bed of dry ash). The rising steam from this action also cools the burning coals still on the grate.
Equipment Required for a Typical Smoking Event
• Your Weber Smokey Mountain water smoker
• Charcoal chimney to start charcoal burning
• Water bucket with spout (garden sprinkler water can with sprinkler end removed)
• One or more remote electronic temperature probes
• Rib racks if doing ribs
Materials Required for a Typical Smoking Event
• Charcoal (good quality, fresh, dry)
• Starting material (I gave up lighter fluid years ago… Use the charcoal bag itself wadded up in the bottom of the charcoal starting chimney.)
• Hard wood soaked in water for 12 to 24 hours to create smoke
Starting and Operating the Smokey Mountain water smoker
• Start by ignoring the “Getting Started” instructions in the Owners Guide with respect to charcoal and how to start it. Following those instructions will result in cooking - do that if you like - but slow smoking requires modification to those instructions.
• Fill a charcoal chimney with charcoal. A smaller chimney should be filled to the top. The Weber chimney should be filled up 2/3 to 3/4 full. Light by putting a large wad of heavy paper (the charcoal bag works well) under the grate of the chimney. Light from all sides using a cigarette lighter or plumber’s torch. (I prefer the torch - much faster.) It will take up to 1/2 hour for the coals to become gray in color all the way to the top. The coals are hot and ready to use when gray in appearance.
WARNING: The charcoal chimney will be very hot when the coals are gray to the top. Use hot pads and handle with care. You should also be aware that hot burning ash will tend to rapidly drift upward when the hot coal is dumped into the smoker. Be careful to avoid standing over the smoker when dumping in the burning coal, and be careful about surrounding dry material that could catch fire if a cinder were to fall as a result of the hot coal being dumped from one container to another.
• Fill the coal ring (on top of grate per assembly instructions) in the Smokey Mountain smoker to the top with unlit fresh dry charcoal.
• When the starter chimney is ready (i.e., coals are gray), spread the burning coals as evenly as possible over the ring of unlit coal. The coal will now be heaping above the level of the coal chamber.
• Add 3 to 4 “large” pieces of water soaked hardwood to the top of the fire. Shake off as much water as possible before adding wood. “Large” would be defined as about a 3 to 4 inch cube of wood, or equivalent. If the chunks are smaller, add more. Chunks larger than 3 to 4 inches will not burn down enough to be effective in this smoker.
• Once the fire chamber (bottom bowl) is set up as outlined above, place the center portion of the smoker on top of the bottom bowl, and put the water bowl in place. Fill the water bowl to the very top with hot tap water. (Boiling water would speed things up in cold weather, but generally hot tap water is good enough.)
• Put the bottom rack in place and put your meat in place. Put the top rack in place and put your meat in place. If smoking ribs, use a 4-slot rib rack to hold racks of ribs up on side. Using these racks will create capacity for 8 full slabs of baby-back ribs in a single smoker.
• If you’re doing brisket or pork shoulder, you should insert the probe of a remote electronic thermometer into the center of the meat, and string the cable out the top of the center section of the smoker. Once the smoking process gets rolling, you will not want to open the cover periodically to check the temperature. Each time you open the cover, you add 15 to 30 minutes to cooking time. (A temperature probe in the meat is not necessary in ribs since they are essentially guaranteed to be done within 6-8 hours at 210 degrees.)
• Once meat and temperature probes (if applicable) are in place, put the top cover on. Start with all dampers fully open.
• Even if you have no temperature probes in the meat inside the smoker, you must have a temperature probe placed into one of the holes in the top damper to keep track of the air temperature inside the grill.
• It is important to monitor the temperature for the first couple of hours at 10 to 15 minute intervals. Experimentation will teach you what to watch for in your setting. In particular, you want to start with dampers open, then start to close them down as you reach 210 degrees (the ideal water smoker temperature). To heat up, open the dampers. To cool down, close the dampers further (but never completely). When you make a damper change, wait at least 10 to 15 minutes to allow the change to take effect before deciding what to do next. You will find that minor damper changes can make significant temperature changes, with “significant” meaning 5 to 10 degrees. Keep in mind that you want to smoke at the relatively cool temperature of 210 degrees (F).
• Once you have achieved the desired temperature and it seems to be stablizing, you can reasonably resort to checking the smoker about once an hour. If I’m doing brisket, I’ll get the smoker stable, and actually go to bed for the night. It won’t be exactly where I want I it the next morning, but close, and I’ll get it back on track in the morning. Brisket (started last night) will be ready for tonight’s dinner. This smoker maintains pretty much on its own once it gets going.
Additional Tips in Operation
• To heat up in cold weather, add dry mesquite. Mesquite wood is the hottest burning of the hard woods used for smoking, and generates about twice as much heat as charcoal by volume (at least in my estimation based on experience).
• To cool down, close down the dampers (but not completely, or the fire will go out).
• You will need to add water to the water pan after 8-10 hours of smoking at 210 degrees (F). If running hotter, add water sooner. Add hot water using a garden watering can with the sprinkler removed, and add it through the side door (do not remove top cover while smoking).
• If additional heat is needed, add dry wood such as mesquite, and/or add charcoal; however, always add fuel through the side door once smoking has begun.
• To maintain heat in windy weather, create a wind break around the smoker.
• To maintain heat in really cold weather, wrap the smoker in an all-cotton quilted material such as an all-cotton mattress pad. Just like keeping yourself warm, wrap it up in warm insulating material, but avoid synthetic materials that will melt onto the surface of the smoker.
• You can count on a minimum of 8-10 hours of smoking time with one load of coal & wood (when following startup instructions above). You can add more coal and wood through the side door to extend smoking time. Weather, smoker content, charcoal quality, and wood used will vary the actual smoking time available without additional fuel. I have gotten as much as 22 hours of 230 degree heat with one load of fuel.
Tips for Ribs
• Ribs will turn out very moist and tender in the Smokey Mountain. You can eat them straight out of the smoker, or let them rest for up to 1/2 hour wrapped in aluminum foil. If you choose to let them rest, wrap them in foil, and place them back into the smoker with all dampers completely closed down to cut off heat flow. Or wrap them in foil and keep them in a warm (not hot) oven.
• Ribs should be smoked for 6 to 8 hours at 210 degrees (F). Dry rub is optional. If you will be adding sauce in finishing on the grill, leave off the rub. If you will not sauce the ribs, use rub. You should, either way, remove the tough skin on the bone side of the rack.
• Serve with a good BBQ sauce.
Tips for Brisket
• Prepare the brisket by trimming excess fat; however, leave at least 1/4” layer of fat as this adds moisture (but generally cooks off by the end of smoking). When placing on the smoker grate, fat side should be up. Rub the entire brisket with your favorite spice rub recipe prior to smoking. You may also want to rub the brisket, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow to marinate overnight before smoking. The spice/rub mix is up to you.
• Operate smoker generally as outlined above, except use slightly less burning coal to start, and damper down to start at 195 degrees (F). For dinner at 5 PM, start around 9 PM the night before. Stabilize the smoker, and let go overnight with minimal intervention. Be sure to place a temperature probe both in the meat and in the top damper of the grill.
• The next morning (or starting 12 hours later), begin to work the temperature up to 210 degrees (F) by adding charcoal, mesquite, etc., as necessary. If you started the smoker at 195 the night before, you will be looking for a smoker temperature of 185 by morning with an internal meat temperature of 130 degrees or so by that time.
• Work the temperature up as needed to get the meat done. If the internal meat temperature is 130 to 135 at 9 AM, keeping the smoker at 210 to 230 the rest of the day will have the brisket well done by evening. NOTE: Well done in the case of a brisket (as opposed to steak) when smoked for 18 hours is very tasty, and will still be juicy after “resting”.
• Let the brisket rest for a minimum of 15 minutes, maximum of 1 hour. Remove from the smoker, and wrap in aluminum foil. Place back in smoker with all dampers closed, or in warm oven or other warm area. Slice and serve after resting.
• Serve with horseradish, or my favorite: A sauce made simply of buttermilk, blue cheese, and horseradish tossed into the blender for a quick puree.
Is That Meat Done?
• The first time I served up truly smoked ribs, the first question I got at the table was “the meat (pork) is sort of red, is it really done?” The smoking process turns meat red just like a pork ham.
• Baby back ribs will be dark pink or reddish all the way through after 8 hours of smoking at 210 degrees. But the meat will be tender, virtually falling off the bone, and oooh so delicious!
• Brisket will have a 1/4” to 1/2” ring of rather reddish meat around the outside. Since brisket is beef, look at the center of the slice. If the center is red, it’s rare. If the center looks like well done beef, and it’s the outside that’s red… well, that’s just a darn fine “smoke ring”, something that judges like to see in a BBQ contest.
Maintenance of the Smokey Mountain (you can’t get out of washing dishes either)
• Always empty ashes out of the bottom bowl, but wait until you’re sure they are no longer burning. For safety purposes, leave the hot ash and still burning coals in the smoker; however, a day or two later (assuming you don’t have to transport the smoker in the mean time), empty the ash. In any case, for maximum safety, always empty ash into a fire-proof container such as a metal bucket, and douse with water. The Smokey Mountain is not very rain-proof. If you leave ash in the bottom bowl, even with the drain hole modification, you’ll find a bowl of “mud” in the bottom of your smoker after the next rainfall.
• You do not need to wash the grates. Simply use a wire brush or crumpled up piece of aluminum foil to scrape the “big chunks” off the grates prior to the next use. Washing will remove the grease coating that provides a “non-stick” coating for your next use, so I don’t recommend cleaning that thoroughly. (Don’t worry too much about bacteria. Your next instance of 8 hours at 210+ degrees will take care of those critters. Bacteria really doesn’t thrive on grease in the first place.)
• The one part that you do want to keep relatively clean is the water pan. Whatever is in there from last time, in terms of flavor, will flavor your food this time. If that means stale “whatever”, you’re encouraging stale in your fresh food. It doesn’t have to be sterile, but getting the gunk out from last time is highly recommended. Cleaning off the outside of the water pan is not necessary, only the inside matters (and it doesn’t have to be perfect, just get out the easily removable gunk with hot water).
Summary
The thing that has impressed me most about the Weber Smokey Mountain water smoker is the fact that I can get it started, largely ignore it for hours, and end up with wonderful slow smoked BBQ. And it’s affordable!
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