Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this, I looked through the options and chose this area as my 'best guess'.
Admittedly I'm not on the forum very often. In an effort to contribute to the community I thought I would share my recent experiences with my WSM 57cm in case they help, resonate with, or amuse anyone.
I've had my WSM since Oct-14 and have, to date, attempted ribs (came out fine), and about 7 or 8 pork shoulders. Of the pork shoulders, all end results have been eaten by those visiting with pleasant feedback, although none have, in my opinion, resembled the truly tender and flavoursome morsels that are described when talking about pulled pork...
Before I continue, for avoidance of doubt, I am aware that a pork shoulder is not the same area of the pig as the 'boston butt'. I'm using supermarket pork shoulders to practice/improve my process before taking on the real thing
Over the last 7/8 cooks I've tried...
Foiling and not foiling
With and without water
Snake method and a couple of self-designed variations thereof
Minion method
With and without thermal mass
Using all, and only some/one of the intake vents
Issues I've had include...
Smoker not reaching target temperature (snake thickness not sufficient for the overnight chill)
Snake not staying lit (must have been a poor snake build by me)
Smoker running too hot and vent adjustments having little or no effect
Unable to even out temperature for ages
Pork coming out a little too mushy (foiled too long)
Father Christmas kindly sent me a Maverick 733 and I ordered some self-stick 1/2inch wide lavalock gaskets from the US. This evening I, along with some visiting friends, tucked into my best pork shoulder yet. Lovely 1/4 inch smoke ring, excellent bark, super tender and, where fat marbling existed, beautiful fat and juice oozing out of the meat when under light compression. I'm now confident enough to try my skills on a proper butt.
My most recent setup was as follows (FYI: I have made warranty-invalidating modifications in some places)...
Gaskets: mostly fitted onto the middle section, where it connects to the bottom section, where it connects to the lid and around the door opening save for the bottom horizontal side. Also fitted to the bottom lip of the door that sits inside the smoker when the door is secured, just underneath the curve in the metal that forms the bottom of the externally viewed door profile. Gaskets fitted and smoker assembled for 24 hours prior to cooking, to allow bedding in.
Vents setup: arranged with 2 rear vents closed (little pegs on vents bent back and filed smooth to allow full closure and to avoid scratching enamel when used). Front facing intake vent used only. Exhaust vent wide open throughout cook.
Middle section door positioning: door handle/catch lined up directly above front facing intake vent.
Fuel setup: Aussie Heat Beads. Minion style arrangement but with hot, lit coals placed into recess created at the edge of the charcoal ring, at the furthest point away from the front facing intake vent (the only one in use). This way the fire is drawn towards the air intake and all available fuel is in front of the fire's path at the start of the cook, without the potential issues I had previously with snake-style attempts. Also, with the door position as described, you never have to reach across a hot part when adding wood etc. Fire started with about 70% full mini chimney.
Foiling: No, have decided I quite like the bark
Minimising leaks with these gaskets allowed me to have much better control of airflow, just using one single intake vent. My maverick reported a rock-steady cooker temp of 234f for the first 8 hours before the morning frost required me to manage the vent (dropped to 226f before i adjusted back to around 240f). The internal meat temp made it through the danger zone inside the first 3 hours and was at 196f at around 13 hours. I triple foiled, wrapped in towels and stuck it in a cooler box in the airing cupboard for 2.5 hours. Once meat was on the grate the lid stayed shut and the fire door was opened just once to check fuel after 8 hours when the vent needed adjusting. I used approx 8kg of heat beads including the starting coals and I have about 30 to 40% of fuel still left to burn. Lastly, shutting the fire down was alot quicker, fire was completely out in about an hour.
Really looking forward to my next cook now
Sleepy
