big charbroil off -set smoker help

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south jersey bbq tim

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Apr 29, 2010
222
11
south jersey
hi everyone. i am happy to have joined the forum!! i have been smoking meat for about 2 years. i finally got a full size smoker and am seasoning it right now and getting used to it. my question is were can a put a water pan? or do you really need a water pan when smoking. im assuming if the meat has good marbling and is smoked between 220 and 275 and useing a mop.etc. why would you need a pan of water!! please help
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thanks
 
A pan of water is used to add moisture to your smoker/meat but the main reason most people use a water pan is to retain heat. The water pan will hold heat when you are opening the doors and will help you get back up to temp faster and also will help to distribute heat across your smoker. Someone was doing some research a while back into the fact that when your smoker has a a certain amount of moisture it will help your smoke ring penetrate your meat further. Don't know if this is true for sure or not. Oh and you also use a water pan to add flavor. Some people mix apple juice and other ingredients into the water and it usually also catches drippings and all of this can add flavor to your meat. Hope this helps sorry it got kind of long.
 
Since you have an offset smoker you would put your water pan infront of the connecting "tube" between your firebox and smoke chamber. If you need to get some bricks wrap them in foil and set the pan on them, about 6-8" infront of the opening. You don't want to kill air flow, but you don't want it far away from the opening either. If you have a problem getting your fire up to temp move it further away.

I used my offset without a water pan for the entire time I had it and everything turned out fine for me. But experiment and see what you like.
 
yes. water under the meat, but i would agree with JIRodriguez. you shouldn't really need the water pan in an offset. i used a water pan in mine until i put a baffle and tuning plates in. now all i use moisture wise is what little leaks off the meat before the bark forms and a spritz of apple cider vinegar every hour after the first 1.5 hours.
 
Just to get a comment in,I do not use water at all. I feel the evaporating juices from the meat does just fine.And the flavor boost is an extra.But, that's just MHO!
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Have fun and,
Smoke Happy
Stan aka bbqfans:}-
 
Hey all, My son and I just finished putting my First Smoker together. It's a charbroil offset...Hopefully the rain holds off so I can season it this weekend, then some ribs I picked up. If not will use my back-up charbroil 3-burner gas/converted sorta to a charcoal/smoker. Learned alot on here so far, some mods made are the therms in the front of lid, extended the smokestack down. hope to get as good as most of you on here. Later all, Dave
 
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