Test Run On Smoker

[hawgman88]

I bought a Weber Smokey Mountain 18.5" today and wanted to do a test run with no meat, just charcoal to see how my temperature ran. I filled up the charcoal ring in the smoker and filled up my weber chimney up to the top of the handle. Once all of my coals on the chimney were lit, I dumped them on the rest of the coals and spread evenly. I left all of the vents open to see where I started and slowly started shutting off the bottom vents. The lowest I could my smoker to was 255 and that was with two vents closed on bottom, the other bottom vent 3/4 closed and the top 1/2 closed. What did I do wrong? Does not having meat or water in the smoker effect this? Help please!!

 

[themule69]

never close the top vent. If you need to close all of the bottom vents to get lower temps you can. You probably have air leaks. Yes nothing in the smoker will efect the temp. Try putting sand in the water pan and wrap with foil.happy smoken.David

 

[munxcub]

With my 18.5" WSM it rocks pretty steady ~240 with 1-2L of water in the bowl and minion method. Never ran it with no meat tho. I'll get around 6-7 hours out of the initial load too, which means I set it before bed and get to sleep some. heh

This is wide open until up to temp, then trimmed back to almost all closed in the bottom vents, top is always 100% open. Stick a digital probe into the top vent to check the accuracy of the built in gauge. Mine is close enough for me so I don't bother with the digital much anymore.