Weber Smokers – Does Your Weber Smokey Mountain Perform Well?

Despite being one of the most popular BBQ smokers of all time, the Weber Smokey Mountain is surprisingly one of those that are most commonly misused.

With a few simple steps you can learn how to get to grips with your Weber Smoker and it will make your life with this great smoker a pleasure as you see improvements in your cooking style and the quality of food that you produce with it.

To begin with, you will want to start your Weber smoker with a chimney starter and add flavoured wood chips to the external dish area and let them mound up so they sit a couple of inches or so above it.

A BBQ lighter, such as the wax variety, available from most DIY stores can be used to good effect by lighting them around the outside. In half an hour or so, your smoker will be up to cooking temperature.

The temperature at which you cook as is a matter of choice depending on what food you are going to cook and by which method you are going to be using.

Temperature wise, setting the Weber smoker to run at Around 240 degrees is a good starting point, and you can open the lower vents wide open during the 120 minutes along with the top vent which should be set to the open position.

By doing so, this will help to maintain the internal temperature of the smoker, and unless your locational temperatures are particularly extreme, you shouldn't have to move the aeration vents any more during smoking.

If you are cooking large joints of meat such as a beef brisket, when it comes to adding the next load of charcoal, detach the lid of the chimney and shake it off well, making sure that the residue is left beneath the grate. To ensure your personal safety, it is recommended that you wear oven mittens to make sure that you don't suffer a burn injury as the chimney is capable of reaching extremely high temperatures.

Now that you are ready to start smoking, you can now introduce water to your Weber Smoker, by adding very hot water to the water dish.

Now you can add a medium sized piece of your preferred hardwood to the heap and this will allow you to leave the smoker for quite a few hours so you can get on with other things.

To lower the Weber smokers internal temperature down to "low-and-slow", you can remove the lid of the smoker and move it around a few times on it's base being careful not to damage the legs. This will allow the heat to radiate and leave the cooking area, and then you should replace the lid to proceed with smoking. You can adjust the vents as you see fit to stabilise the temperature to your liking.

If you need to set your Weber Smokey Mountain to a higher temperature, simply slide the lid over, so there is a small opening. This will allow the air to circulate more efficiently and increase the temperature considerably.

Be careful when doing this as it can raise the temperature very quickly, so be sure to check the temperature gauge often, around every 10 minutes or so initially is sufficient.

To get the best performance and keep your Weber Smoker clean at the same time, scrub the grates and bowl, removing the larger pieces of residue only. You do not want to completely clean the grates or bowl, a quick brushing over is ideal.

When you have finished using your Weber Smokey Mountain, shut the aeration vents and you may observe that there are plenty of wood pieces left inside. These are ideal for keeping and using to start fires, or use again in your Weber smoker next time.

It is worth buying a good quality pair of heat protective gloves so that you can safely operate and move your smoker during use and transportation.

Adding an accurate temperature gauge to your Weber Smokey Mountain is a functional and worthwhile investment and easy DIY project. To install a temperature gauge you will simply need to drill a suitable sized hole in the upper vent, or in the lid, and locate the gauge and install it using the supplied locking nut.