First weekend with Sparky (my new WSCG)

[glitchy]

I adopted Sparky on Wednesday afternoon when her handler Chris delivered her. I have cooked on her every day since minus Thursday and have been very impressed. A little more work than I’m used to in the past with pellet grills, but not a lot. There’s definitely more versatility here that I’m going to enjoy. Hopefully, the SnS LP gets here Wednesday and I can do some low and slow next weekend. I know, can just run in kamado mode and would have if was wanting to cook low and slow this weekend, but that wasn’t the menu.

Wednesday was burgers using after doing a burn off. Friday night was steaks using the Vortex, Saturday lunch was turkey burgers with coals low but direct, Saturday night I put Sparky in Kamado mode and hooked up the Fireboard drive to do meatloaf and taters with Sous Vide sweet corn. Today was about 8lbs of chicken parts using the vortex. Burgers and turkey burgers were great, steaks OK (I’m taking blame for trying too much and cooking different than normal), meatloaf tasted great but was a little dry, chicken was fabulous. I think Sparky will be a part of the family for a long time.

A couple of questions. First, do any of you use a water pan with meatloaf? I never used a water pan on my pellet grills and meatloaf was always juicier than this one (80/20 beef)?

Second, when starting that fire, I lit 2-3 cups of coal and let them start for about 10-15 mins, Some were leftover coals, but fresh were partially a shed over, so I spread them out, threw in 3-4 chunks over Pecan, put in the diffuser and set the Fireboard to 350. Went back in to fished getting meatloaf ready. When I came out to put it on, there was nasty smoke pouring out. I opened the lid and Sparky was full of brown/grey smoke. I left the lid open a couple mins, then turned the drive to 100% manual for a while. About 5-10 mins later I got to a nice thin blue smoke. What did I like do wrong?

[Thunder77]

Maybe some damp wood or charcoal?

[glitchy]

Hmmm, iI think it did rain the night before, but it was under a covered patio with vents all closed up. I’ll have to keep an eye on that.

[FireMan]

Awe...... cute lil’ Sparky!

[Spinaker]

I would skip the water pan all together. You really only need one for high air flow applications like a stick burner or a pellet rig.

I would not re-use briquettes. They never seem to relight very well and they tend to suck up more moisture when they are not in use, because of the binders. That thick smoke was probably those used briquettes trying to re light and the moisture being burned off.

[fzxdoc]

glitchy , I've never had black nasty smoke come out of my WSCGC, and I've used KBB, lump, and Weber Briquettes in it. It sounds as though you should have had a good light to the coals but that perhaps something went awry with the Fireboard drive running the show at the beginning. What were your vent settings during the initial warm up to smoking temp?

I've never used a water pan when cooking in kamado mode on the WSCGC. I asked the same question here when I first got the Summit Charcoal and the major consensus was that it was not necessary. I smoke bacon-covered meatloaves in the WSCGC all the time and they turn out fine.

Here is the detailed setup/lighting method I use; for me and Mr. Fancypants (my name for my WSCGC), it works great every time:

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My Current Kamado Setup Method for Smoking

1. Foil the Ash Bucket and the Diffuser Plate. Wipe the grate down with a Lysol wipe and then wipe down again with water. Set out two medium or one large disposable aluminum pan(s) for drip pans to be set on the diffuser plate. Two medium pans fit perfectly; one large pan may have to be re-shaped a bit to fit over the diffuser area.

2. Use 2.5 black Weber scoops (one scoop is 40 coals or half a standard chimney) for short cooks like ribs or chicken and 4 scoops for long cooks like pork butt, chuck or brisket. Four scoops will give you about 10-12 hours of decent temps (250° or more). Spread them pretty evenly on the charcoal grate. Top with 5-6 chunks of wood (4 to 6 oz each). Don't put a wood chunk directly over the igniter. 5 to 6 chunks will give you about 5 hours of beautiful blue smoke. For short cooks, use 1-2 chunks of wood.

3. Start the SnapJet ignition going. Let it run for exactly 5 minutes with the lid open and bottom vent fully open.

4. After the 5 minute ignition, turn off the gas igniter. Add the diffuser plate, the aluminum drip pan(s) and the food grate. Attach the ambient probes to the grate. Close the lid, flip down the top vent but leave the holes fully open (bottom vent still fully open) and watch the temperature climb.

5. When you're about 70 degrees from your goal temperature, close the bottom vent to the smoke setting (or just below if your WSCGC runs hot) and close the top vent to 1/2 or less, again, depending on your Weber. I like to have the lower vent just to the right of the smoke setting mark and the top vent at 1/3 to ride out the cook.

6. Before adding meat, oil the grate with a soaked paper towel to clean it off and give it some lubrication.

There's a ton of white smoke until the Weber gets around 225-250, then it settles out to white wispy/blue smoke for several hours. If the smoke is pure white (no grey), I'll put the cold meat on at 180°F grate level temp so it can get a jump on the smoke flavor. I feel (but don't know for sure) that adding that cold mass helps to keep the temperatures from running away. I've done it both ways--adding the meat early at 180°F and adding it at 225°F, and honestly, if I keep an eye on the temp, I've yet to have a runaway smoker.

Being a PBC type of person, I'm comfortable with smoking in the 270ish range (270 to 300 works well for my tastes, but that's a bit hot for some folks). A 4 scoop load of coals lasts about 8-9 hours at that setting. To get this, I set the lower vent to just above (to the right of) the smoker setting and the upper vent to 1/3 open.

For cooking below 250, I close the lower vent to just below the smoker setting (to the left of it) and set the upper vent to 1/4 open. At 250 or less, I can get about 10-12 hours of smoke out of a single 4-scoop load of coals.
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Hope this info helps!

Kathryn

[glitchy]

Thanks for that great info!

[CaptainMike]

Next up: pizza! Spartacus is a pizza making machine.