I just picked up a new Weber Smokey Mountain smoker for $80 on clearance at WalMart. Smokin' Deal!

This is my first smoker. I've always wanted one, but the $200+ entry point for a good smoker always kept me from taking the plunge.

In reviewing, it sounds like I got lucky and bought a good one. Anybody have a WSM? Or other charcoal smoker?

Suggestions for a first-time smoker? I'll probably be doing briskets, shoulders, and ribs. Anyone ever smoked game? I've got some goose breasts I was thinking of trying out on the smoker...

Let's hear it from the pros -

Enjoy....

Not a pro,

Use good charcoal for heat and wood for smoke.
Don't use charcoal lighter, to lite charcoal.

Start with some chick maybe pork butt till you get used to your vents

Have always heard good things about the WSMs. I like watching and playing with fire so I use my stick burner. Ya have to be "into" the process 'cause it's more labor intensive. Did spare ribs Saturday and chicken leg qtrs. yesterday. I do mainly chuck roasts instead of briskets since the price of brisket went up and stayed there. Also takes a lot less time and we don't need all the meat of a brisket.

1) You STOLE that thing!

2) Virtual Weber Bullet is an excellent resource

3) Start with their "Hot and Fast Chicken" recipe - it's quick, easy, delicious, & will give you the confidence to try more stuff.

3) This Brisket Tutorial will likely be all you'll ever need. It's purported to be a, "basics for beginners" kinda deal, but the results are so good that I've never done it any other way. I've not had better brisket since I began doing it this way, and that includes 2 trips through Lockhart.

4) Atvalaska is your man. He's the Charlie Daniels of the WSM.

Enjoy that thing!

FC

Started with a el cheapo Walmart smoker then upgraded to a Weber Smokey mountain that a pard gave to me, used that one for 2 years now I ultimate upgraded to the Big Green Egg and won't look back.

The Weber worked awesome but was hard to keep at 225 as it does not seal up tight. It also works well when when it isn't windy and the temps are warm, say 50 and above I found.

You got an excellent deal at 80.00, you-tube is your friend as far as how to videos.

Enjoy

This. I would say go with the Boston Butts if you are a beginner....they have so much fat in them that they are nearly impossible to dry out. About the only way you can really go wrong is to let the fire go out. Just follow the instructions that probably came with your set up and you will be good.

Been my experience with a couple other brands of the basic round tin charcoal smokers, as well.

The colder the outside temperature and even more so if it is windy the longer it takes for the meat to get done and the more charcoal needed to keep the smoker temperature up.

I'm hardly an expert.....but do fairly well I'm told...

use only local dry fruit wood..apple..cherry...peach & pear...

yes...no charcoal lighter....learn your grill & vents...

keep at 225* (ish) low & slow....pic is a slab of venison back

straps..went from the field...washed..on the smoker..wrapped in

bacon & apple slices...was really yummy...225* for 4 hrs...cast iron

skillet on heat side full of Bud Lite for added moisture

http://www.smokingpit.com/recipes/Cheddar-Mushroom-Burger.htm

I've messed with all different kinds, for my money these days electric is the way to go. It is the easiest to keep a consistent heat and a consistent low heat is the most important thing.

Your meat only really picks up smoke in the first few hours. After that, the source of the heat doesn't matter at all. I've even gotten great results in removing a brisket from the smoker after three or four hours and finishing it up in the oven.

But however you choose, low and slow is the key. It is hard to mess up anything too bad if you keep it low and slow.

Pork butt marinated overnight in teriyaki and smoked with alder wood and you'll have some great eats.

My wife and kids gave me an 18" WSM for Christmas. I ran it dry once to season it and get used to the temp. control. I was easily able to keep it 225 - 235, for 5 - 6 hrs, on a day that was in the mid 30's with a light breeze. The addition of a dual probe remote thermometer makes monitoring the temp. much easier as I can keep track from inside the house and the dome thermometer on the WSM is not accurate.

I tried my WSM for real with 2 racks of spare ribs using this recipe:
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/best_BBQ_ribs_ever.html

and this recipe for the sauce:
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/BBQ_sauces/kansas_city_classic_BBQ_sauce.html

The results were outstanding! Some of the best meat I have ever eaten.

I also smoked 2 chickens last week. They were also very good.

The amazing ribs site has a lot of information specific to the WSM. There are also some videos on youtube that specifically address the WSM.

I think you will be very happy with the $80 spent on your new smoker. I am jealous of that deal. Enjoy!

I've been smoking for 40+ years and first recommendation would be ...stay away from brisket for a while. It's the toughest meat to get a good smoke on, plus your looking at a 15 hour+ cook time.

Temperature maintenance is the most important part of smoking. Maintain 225-250 degrees and cook it until you get the internal temp you want. On a butt that is 185 for sliced and 195 for pulled pork. Pull it, double wrap it in HD foil, wrap a towel around it and stuff it in an empty ice chest for an hour or your ready to eat.

Maverick makes a dual probe thermometer with a remote, that takes the leg work out of smoking It allows you set low and high trigger points, which will cause the remote alarm to go off and will flash the out of bounds temp. With one probe in the smoker and one in the meat, there is no reason to take the lid off.

^^^^^^^ This. Controlling smoker temp and knowing internal temp of meat is very imporatnt

After using a traeger and there are many other similar brands. A pellet smoker is just too easy. It also yields perfect results everytime. I can't imagine using anything else now.

I've had a WSM for several years, that's a steal at that price. I haven't done a brisket on it yet but have done pork butt, ribs, turkey and chicken. All turn out great. I'd get a chimney to start the charcoal and learn how to set the vents to regulate the temp and keep it lower for good cook times. I'd suggest a thermometer to put right on the grate inside, the dial thermometer isn't showing the temp where your meat will be. I picked one up that has a prong for the grill temp and one that goes in the meat. It's a transmitter/receiver so I can keep an eye on the temp with it while in the house.

I have been looking up some plans to build a smoke house.

I knew that stuff had to be good for something.

I smoked a bunch of stuff at my dad's on that smoker. Including 3 racks of ribs. it worked great.

So that's what Bud Lite's for! Best use I've seen so far!

Unless you have a Treager. My first brisket came out really good!

Hearing all the talk about how hard brisket was kept me from trying it for a long time. All I can say is that if it is that hard, then I'm a natural. Use copious amounts of pepper and kosher salt, use oak, and then put it on at 230 or so for about 12 hours. It turns out great every time and is the easiest thing I cook.

I have a Traeger but have not tried a brisket yet. It's on the to do list though.

I use electric and agree with what this fellow says. And I will re emphasize, low and slow. I smoke briskets for 10-12 hours, or 4-5 hours then in the oven, foil wrapped for another 5-6 hours.

as a first time cook I'd suggest a whole turkey or chicken. Or even a whole turkey breast or a pork butt. No way you can screw it up and those bullet smokers do a great job with birds. For the smoke, I would use any fruit or pecan wood.

Also, you might be able to get by with one load of lump and water with the birds.

BTW that's a great deal on a proven smoker. I've seen guys take first place with those cookers. And brisket is just as hard/easy as anything else. Go For IT!!

that is an unreal deal. i paid $239 for mine and it was worth it. you will love it. use the minion method. mine will run 10+ hours at 250 with no reload. pork shoulders, briskets, ribs, hams, slurp slurp slurp. those are smokin' mf'ers.

Thanks for all the tips. I've already got a chimney on order from Amazon and looking at the dual proble thermometers. It'll be next week before I can try it out, but looking forward to using it. I plan to start with something simple, like chicken or turkey breast, then try a pork butt. Once I've figured out the vents and burn time, I'll go for a brisket.

Based upon what I'm seeing on Youtube, people do really well with these little smokers.

If it doesn't have a thermometer on the outside you should add one.

Smoking is the easiest thing in the world. Including brisket.




Dave

I have a few smokers, but the 18" WSM is my go to 90% of the time.

Lots of good info online including the Virtual Weber forum

Couple recommendations:

Get a bigger/more accurate lid thermometer

Buy a second grate for the charcoal and wire it 90 degrees to the one that comes with the unit. You waste less and increases burn time.

Buy a remote thermometer probe. Maverick was the standard for many years, but look at the new "Smoke" by Thermoworks. I have both, but the later is better built and easier to program alarms.

Line the water pan with ceramic briquettes and cover with foil. Helps to control temps

Start small. Cook a few greasy pork sausage "fatties" to coat the inside of the unit. This will help seal it up and control temps.

Don't get carried away adding too much wood. A little goes a long way and you can easily make the food bitter. Fruit wood is a good place to start.

If you want to use it as a grill, buy a grate that has hinges so you can add or adjust the heat

Get yourself a chimney firestarter if you don't already have one

Ribs are a good place to start. Easy to get tender and not too long of a cook

Always cook with the top vent wide open. You don't your food tasting like a fireplace

There are a bunch of aftermarket accessories that are cool, but not needed. I like the Bandit door and lid seal. Someone also sells a hinged lid upgrade so you don't have to set it on the ground.

heres how my wsm works for a 10+ hour smoke

- fill basket with unlit plain kingsford charcoal and maybe a little chunk of hard wood like oak or cherry on the bottom.

- light about 12 or 15 briquets in the chimney using 2 full sheets of newspaper. let them get white around the edges and smoking good.

- meanwhile, wrap the water pan in aluminum foil and fill with plain water and put in smoker.

dump chimney on top of basket and put the smoker back together with the bottom and lid vents cranked wide open.

- when temp is 225, close the bottom vents to about 1/3 open and put the meat on the rack right above the water.

temps should stabilize at 250 or so. leave it be and monitor for a bit. if it starts to get too hot, close the bottom vents some more. don't mess with the top vents at all.

if you want to smoke at cooler than 250, close bottom vents to 1/3 at 200 or about 25 degrees cooler than desired smoking temp.

this is at summer temps but is pretty good in winter too. you might just need to play with the bottom vents a bit more.

the way i do pulled pork and brisket. i put them on about 10 PM and the wsm is still in range at 7AM. i then pull the meat, sauce it and foil it and either put it in a warm cooler or the oven at 200 until an hour before i'm ready to eat then i uncover it and let it rest and either pull the pork or slice the brisket.

After getting a smoker, brisket was the first thing I tried. Came out great.

So I finally got to try out the new smoker.

I set it up with the briquet ring around the outside of the fire ring and then started some coals with my new chimney. Once good and hot I dumped them into the center of the pit and put it all back together with a good amount of water in the pan. Put some Hickory chunks on the coals

I picked up a couple of pounds of deboned chicken thighs on sale as well as a couple small clearance priced corned beef brisket points. I put a sweet whiskey rub on the chicken and left the corned beef naked.

When the smoker hit 250 degrees, I put the chicken on the lower shelf and the corned beef on the top shelf and closed it up. I closed the vents halfway and 15 minutes later the temp had dropped to 180. So I opened the bottom vents fully and it got to 195. I opened the top vent fully and 10 minutes later in got to 205 and stuck there. The coals were fine, I just think with so much meat and a water pan, that it couldn't get much hotter without more draft of some kind (wind). So I left it all for 4 hours and it held that temp the whole time. When the chicken hit temp, I took them out and left the brisket in.

The temp shot up to 250 with the reduced meat load , but I figured the brisket was already smoke sealed, so I added some water to the pan, put in a few extra briquets and wrapped the points in foil and left it overnight.

The chicken -- OMG!!!! Juicy - AMAZING!!

The next morning I went out and the smoker was just about out out, temp down to 100 and those corned beef points had been in there for 12 hours. I pulled them out, let them rest for 10 minutes and then got out the knife. Unbelievable. Juicy, tender, smoked corned beef brisket. I ate a half pound sliced with some eggs on the side and then had a sliced corned beef sandwich with spicy mustard for lunch. I wrapped up the rest in foil and two days later put the foil packet in the oven for 30 minutes to warn in up and it was just as good.

This WSM is a total champ. I can see why people like it so much. It could not be easier. I'm looking to start a pork butt late Saturday for Sunday dinner.

Thanks for all the tips -- I feel like a seasoned smoker after the first try!

You got one hell of a deal. I bought one for my son, but I paid a lot more than that. He's done ribs and briskets that were amazing. Have fun with it.

Homebuilt, not very fuel efficient, peachwood for fuel, live in a peach orchard, plenty of fuel

I've smoked meat and fish for a long time, but just recently have gotten into making bacon.

Bacon is so easy, and so good I will never buy store bought bacon again. I will undoubtedly shorten my life because of this discovery, but the quality of what's left will for sure go up. The latest batch goes into the smoker tomorrow morning. I got some stuff called Cafe Granita when I stopped by the wine store for some stuff. It's really intense espresso made into a heavy liqueur. I mixed it 1/2 and 1/2 with good maple syrup. Taste really good like that. Added brown sugar, kosher salt, curing salt and some pepper and a little water. A week in the fridge turning twice a day and into the smoker. 225 degrees until the internal temp hits 150 any have at it.

Got another belly today and split it up so that I can make for more batches. I think maybe the Jack Daniels comes next.

Try making bacon! The difference between real home made bacon and store bought is unbelievable.

Re the goose breasts, yesterday I finished goose pastrami on the smoker and it is fantastic. Much, much better than I had expected.
Search Hank Shaw Goose Pastrami for this very easy recipe.
I have lots of pics, but have yet to figure out how to get them from my phone to this forum.
Lastly, a previous poster made mention of home made bacon. Far and above anything you can buy and dirt simple to make. I like Ruhlman's recipes as starters for this.