Hi everyone from Salisbury, Wiltshire in the UK

[nigelr]

Hi everyone, my name is nigel and my wife Glenda and I have a Kingsford upright bullet smoker, similar in design to the WSM. We have had the smoker for about 6 years but we are still very much Newbies to the art, we more often than not try smoking a whole chicken and manage to obtain a smoker temperature of around 250 degrees, however, after about an hour to one and a half hours the temperature starts to drop to around 130, I try adding new coals but to no avail, so chicken finished off in the oven and the smoker goes to the back of the shed for another couple of months or do.

Reading forums and surfing the web over the last week a couple of things that come to light which may be adding to our problem is: 1. The water bowl may be too close to the coals because I can't get a good thick layer of coals on the tray. 2. Also because of this the water tray is preventing the heat from the coals reaching the chicken. 3. The water boils too much thus suppressing the heat from reaching the chicken. 4. I also tend to keep the vents closed too much thinking I will let all the heat out. Well that's my limited take on it anyway.

Well that's me, I have a couple of responses to digest and reply to and look forward to communicating with everyone via the forum and learning a lot about smoking.

Regards to all

Nigel

 

[gary s]

  Good evening and welcome to the forum, from a cloudy, warm and rainy looking East Texas. Lots of great people with tons                of information on just about  everything 

          Gary

 

[nigelr]

Thanks for the welcome Gary.

 

[themule69]

Glad you joined the group. The search bar at the top of any page is your best friend.
About anything you wanna know about smoking/grilling/curing/brining/cutting or slicing
and the list goes on has probably been posted. Remember to post a QVIEW of your smokes.
We are all smoke junkies here and we have to get our fix. If you have questions
Post it and you will probably get 10 replies with 11 different answers. That is
because their are so many different ways to make great Q...
Happy smoken.
David

 

[wolfman1955]

Nigel and Glenda,
Welcome, from southern Ohio, to the best forum on the internet if you are looking to learn how to BBQ/smoke/brine/cure/inject. Well you get the picture if you can do it to to something you put on a plate to eat then someone here has probably done it. Use the search bar at the top of the page and you will be led to the answer to most every question you can think of. If you don't find the answer there then just post it and someone will chime in with there opinion on the subject.
Heat and fire management are probably two of the hardest things to learn! If you stick with it and ask for advice here on the forum you will get a handle on it. As far as the water pan goes there are allot of people including myself who don't even use one.
Always remember the only dumb question is the one you don't ask!!!
Keep Smokin!!!
Wolf

 

[kc5tpy]

Hello Nigel and Miss Glenda and Welcome to our addiction.  Many good folks here with a load of experience that they are more than willing to share.  If you have specific questions just start a thread and someone with experience will be along soon to offer advice.  All info you can provide us with such as smoker type, location and so on will help us answer any questions you may have, and pictures help a bunch.  Spend some time doing some research on the forums, tons of advice and recipes already available there.  Check out Jeff’s 5 day smoking E-Course ( link below ) that will help you get started.  We look forward to your contributions.  Have fun.  Good luck.  Keep Smokin!

Danny

http://www.smoking-meat.com/smoking-basics-ecourse

 

[smokin monkey]

Hi Nigel, welcome to the forum. Sorry can not answer the questions regarding your smoker, but hang in there, some one will come along with all the answers you need.

Smokin Monkey :38:

 

[nigelr]

Thanks Danny (KC5TPY), Wolf (Wolfman1955), David (themule69) and Gary (gary s) for the friendly welcome. We will persevere and master the art of smoking because we like BBQing and eating outside, we will post some pictures of our conquests to keep you informed of how we are getting on.

Keep smoking

Nigel