Hello from NW Arkansas

[gregh]

Hi All,
My name is Greg been reading great info on this site for about a year taken in all the knowledge everyone has on this site. I been grilling for years on my weber and now ready to take it to the next level. After a lot of research I decided to go with a wsm 18" and bought this bad boy yesterday. I hope to do a dry run next week to get use to controlling the temp. Question is should I go with water in the pan or move forward with pea gravel or play sand on the first few smokes in the water pan?
Thanks

 

[rmmurray]

Welcome Greg! :welcome:
Congratulations on the new WSM! You're going to love it. I'm a Weber guy myself and built a mini WSM. I don't run anything in my water pan. Being that I built it myself my water pan is actually a 10 inch nonstick skillet, but still I run it dry. The best advice I can give you is to search recipes on this forum specifically for your WSM. From there you can see what others have done (most of them use a step-by-step) and then base your decisions off of that. Once you do start smoking, start with something cheap and forgiving like chicken. If you don't like the way the smoker is working, make a small change and wait 15 minutes to see how that change affected the smoker. Then if you're still not happy, make another small change and wait 15 more minutes. You'll continue to do this until you have the smoker working exactly the way you want it to. Once you figure out where you're inlet vents need to be, try leaving them in the exact same position when you begin your next smoke. Always remember to post pics and write down everything you did so that way we can help you have a better smoke next time. Enjoy your new smoker my friend.
- Ryan

 

[gregh]

Thanks Ryan. I been reading a lot of your post and you are very knowledgable on helping us rookies.

 

[rmmurray]

Thanks Ryan. I been reading a lot of your post and you are very knowledgable on helping us rookies.

Thanks Greg, but I'm still a rookie myself.

 

[gary s]

  Good evening and welcome to the forum, from a cool and nice day here in East Texas. Lots of great people with tons of information on just about  everything.

Gary