Seasoning and calibrating your grill or smoker with dry runs The first thing to do after you assemble your new grill or smoker is to season it and calibrate it by doing a few dry runs without food. This will burn off any manufacturer's grease, and give you a sense for how to set it up to hit the two important target temps that almost all my recipes use: 225°F and 325°F. Of course, in order to do this, you absolutely positively must have a good digital oven thermometer. I don't care how much you spent on your grill, the bi-metal dial thermometer that came with it is probably cheap and unreliable and likely to be off by as much as 50°F. Worse still, it is in the dome, and the temp down on the grate where the meat sits is much different. Like a musician, you must master your instrument to make great food.

5 steps to mastering the WSM If you have a new WSM you absolutely positively must read Gary Wiviott's book Low & Slow: Mastering the Art of Barbecue in Five Easy Lessons. Wiviott, who is extremely knowledgeable about food, gives you step by step guidance, and if you follow his procedures you will be richly rewarded.

Top: Wood chunks in unlit lump charcoal. Bottom: Hot ash coated coals on top of unlit coals. That's the Minion Method.

Best setup for a Weber Smokey Mountain Barbecue and other charcoal bullet shaped smokers

There are a number of bullet-shaped charcoal smokers out there and they are pretty easy to use. The best, by far, is the Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM). Brinkmann makes another popular unit, but it is not as good.

Click here for more about the WSM and where to buy one. Below, in brief, is all you need to get started. Use this method to get started and later you can play with more or less wood, more or less coal, vent opening, etc.

We will use the Minion Method, named after Jim Minion, a caterer who invented the technique. It is better than the method recommended by Weber. If you light all the coals at once as Weber recommends, they will burn hot at first and then cool off. The Minon Method puts hot coals on top of cold coals and it is is much better at keeping the temp steady because it lights new coals as the old ones burn out.

If you use the Minion Method, Minion says you should use hardwood lump charcoal (at right), Duraflame Hardwood Briquets, or the new Kingsford Competition Briquets (in a brown bag). Because they have additives and fillers, some people say they can taste an off flavor from igniting regular Kingsford Briquets from the blue bag when they are used in the Minion Method.

It is really a good idea to use a good thermometer and keep a cooking log when using a WSM, at least until you understand how it works.

1) Dump the ash from the bottom of the smoker. It is essential that nothing blocks the air intakes. If you can, buy another spare bottom grate and lay it on top of the one that came with your WSM with the bars perpendicular, creating a checkerboard pattern. This will prevent coals and wood from falling through.

2) Open all the vent on the top all the way, and open the bottom vents half way. For ribs, normally 4-6 hours of cooking, fill the charcoal ring halfway with unlit charcoal. For a large hunk of meat that will take a long time to cook, like pork shoulder for pulled pork, or beef brisket, a cook that can take 8-14 hours, fill the ring all the way. Bury about 6 ounces of wood in the coals for ribs, 12 ounces for pork shoulder or beef brisket. You can use chips or pellets, but I prefer chunks because they ignite and smolder slowly, so that would be two chunks a little larger than golf balls for ribs, and 4 chunks for larger cuts. No need to soak the wood. Click here to read why and more about wood. An easy way to bury the wood is to add a single layer of charcoal, then add the wood, and then cover it with more charcoal.

3) Fill a Weber chimney 1/3 with coals and light them (if it is really cold fill it 1/2 or more). When the coals are completely white, pour them over the unlit coals in the bottom of your cooker and spread them out evenly on top of the unlit coals. Place the cooking grate on top of the hot coals to heat it up so you can scrape it clean. Old grease and rust can taint the flavor of your food.

4) Put together the rest of the smoker positioning the door so it is easily accessible. Line the water pan with heavy duty aluminum foil. This will make cleanup easier. Insert the water pan and fill it within 1/2" of the top with water. Try to use hot water since it will absorb less heat and help get the oven up to temp faster. Click here to read more about what goes in the water pan.

5) Leave the top vent open all the way and resist the temptation to close it. Regulate the temperature with the bottom vents. Closing the top vent only encourages nasty tasting soot and creosote formation. When the temp gets up to about 200°F, and it will get there quickly on a hot day, throttle back the lower vents to about 1/3 open and keep twiddling with them until you stabilize at about 225-250°F. Regulating temp may be a bit trickier on a new unit until it has built up a nice deposit of char on the inside. New unites can run a bit hot. Once the temp has stabilized at 225-250°F, you can open the side door and drop another 2-4 ounce chunk of wood on top of the coals and you are ready to cook.

6) Insert a meat thermometer probe into the center of large cuts. Make sure it is not in contact with the bone. Add the meat. Place an oven thermometer probe near the meat but not touching the grate. If the meat is on the lower grate, do not meter the temp at the top grate or on the dome. It is different. I use the Maverick and thread the cables for the oven probe through a top vent hole. One of the problems with the 18.5" bullet smokers is that they have 15.5" grates and many slabs of ribs, especially St. Louis cut slabs, don't fit. Well you don't have to cut them in half. The picture here shows one way to get two full slabs on a single rack in a Weber Smokey Mountain: Use rib racks and bend the slabs to fit. If you do this on both the upper and lower grate on a WSM you can get four slabs on. Another technique is to roll the slab in a circle and run a long skewer through the place where then ends overlap. Works great and keeps the ends from burning.

7) Now go drink a beer. After the smoke stops, you can add more wood if you know what you are doing. There's always the risk of oversmoking, so until you really know your machine, don't add any more wood.

8) Every two hours check to make sure the water pan has not dried out. When it gets low, carefully add hot water.

9) Follow my recipe for the best ribs ever or pulled pork or brisket.

10) When you are done, close all vents to smother the coals and preserve them for the next cook. Just make sure you shake off the ash before you use partially burned coals, and wipe your ash again.

11) When you store your WSM, put a good cover over it and make sure it drops low enough to keep rain out of the lower seam. Then leave the upper and at least one lower vent open. Moisture inside can rapidly turn to a nasty mold that can coat the inside of your smoker if you don't allow for some air flow.

And that's all there is to it. Go drink another beer. Just don't drink the bong water.

This page was revised 7/5/2009