New to me Weber Smokey Mountain, now what?

[IdahoJim]

I've been wanting to try out a real charcoal smoker for a long time. I picked up a use 18" Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) in pretty good shape for $100. I want to break it on on Sunday trying a rack of ribs. All pieces are there and appear to be in good shape, but it is dirty and, I think, moldy. How do I deal with getting this thing ready to cook on?

[Mosca]

Get it ridiculously hot. Let it burn out. Then clean it out, and burn it out again (just for safety re the cleaning stuff), and then you’re ready to go.

[Panhead John]

Yep. A good wire brush cleaning on the cooking grates and maybe a little vegetable oil spray on em and you’re good to go.

[ecowper]

I came here to say what Mosca said

[outta_ammo]

Looks like the water pan's missing? But, yeah, a couple off good burns and a brush down should do it.

The manual might help.

And Harry Soo's videos are a WSM owner's best friend.

[BFlynn]

That water pan is over rated, anyway.

This way, it's closer to a PBC

[ecowper]

Here is how I set up my WSM for low and slow

[Finster]

Interesting that you just light the chimney right in the center.
Great idea.

[ecowper]

Finster I’ve done it both ways, both work. This way is easy

[synodog]

^^This^^

Although I light my chimney on a turkey fryer burner for about 30 seconds to a minute ish.

[IdahoJim]

It took some work to get this thing hot. I dumped a very full hot chimney of Kingsford blue bag in it with all vents open and it only got to about 325. I dumped some more charcoal on top and the temperature dropped. I finally left the lid off for about 10 minute to get it really going. Still, with the lid back on it was only just above 350. Finally, I cracked the lid and got it good and hot. Is this too hot for the WSM? Will it hurt anything?

[Panhead John]

At cooking grate level the temps should be hotter. Did you rely on the dome thermometer? If so, they are notoriously inaccurate. You won’t hurt anything with hot temps.

[ecowper]

You won’t hurt it at all running at 350. However, the WSM is intended for cooking at 250 or 300. I typically run around 250F for ribs, brisket, pork butt, etc. I do crank it up to 300-325 for turkey.

[Purc]

The late Phil Rogers, aka Phil n Florence of YouTube made many mods to his WSM. He put in some extra support clips, added a grill grate, put in his SnS and used his WSM as a Kettle. He even put in some wood splints for a real wood fire in his WSM. You will be fine. For fun, check out Phil n Florence on YouTube.

[Txmat]

+1

[IdahoJim]

Hmm... I didn't notice when I bought this that it doesn't have the probe hole and grommet. It's an AA code, so, built in 2011 from what I see. On my Kettle, I just run the probe wires for my Thermoworks Smoke under the lid. Can I just do that for now on the WSM? If not, what works best?

[ecowper]

I have drilled a hole in a Weber kettle using a step bit like synodog discusses. It’s not hard to do at all.

[Txmat]

And I just ran mine under the lid -never a problem

[fillirican]

I agree. Drilling a hole with a step bit was very easy for me.