As for the burn time before you need to reload….I was using lump which tends to burn quicker then the recommended briquets..I would think an average burn time would be 8-12 hours before a reload…this was only my first cook on it I would want a couple more under my belt before I could predict the burn time. It was somewhat cold and windy yesterday which will effect fuel consumption. It seemed like I needed to add a lot of water to the pan over the cook….I use sand in my smaller WSM so it might just be that it seemed like I had to use a lot o water.
I ended up using close to a full bag of lump including the chimney for about a 12 hour cook…there was a fair amount of lump left in the cooker but IMO not enough to finish the cook if I had not foiled. A couple of things could have contributed to this consumption…I had spread the lit charcoal around the unlit more than on the smaller WSM..I think using water as a heat sink might have contributed as well. I’d like to try sand or even some foil balls or a piedmont type of heat sink. All in all I’m happy with the way the WSM cooked and the added fuel use isn’t really a concern for me using it was pretty easy…
I only had one temp spike and that was like the perfect storm…lid was off to move brisket from bottom to top rack, the water pan was low and I had reload the charcoal and a bunch of it had caught…I just shut everything down…reaching in with some welding gloves pushed the charcoal to one side and after the temp came down…reset the vents and it was locked in again.
T he bigger WSM is like any other pit it has its advantages and disadvantages..the bigger cooking surface is real nice especially for ribs and whole briskets but it needs a little more tending to then the smaller WSM. I own two of the smaller WSMs and unless I need the extra space in a bad way I think I would do an overnight butt cook on them instead of the bigger one….now if I was going to be doing yard work all day and wanted ribs..rather than tend my offset which is what I typically cook ribs in I would probably use the Bigger WSM. For comp cook the new WSM will be nice at comps the added space would make it real easy to compete with one.
One other thing I know they tell you not to use lump..I did anyway but one thing I noticed is I would not use this on a wooden deck…because of the placement of the lower 3 dampers and the bigger holes when it got windy I noticed that some pretty big coals were blowing out the holes..
Again all these observations are after just one cook so take them for what they are. I was very pleased with the performance of the new WSM. It was just as easy to use as the old one and the food came out great
Oh yeah….the Burnt ends were worth the wait….
