Well my pellet tray came in this week and the wife had bought a 5 pound brisket flat, so I thought why not use the AMNPS in the WSM when I smoke the brisket.
Knowing I needed to shield the tray from the charcoal, I used the standard (old 2005 style) water pan empty with my clay saucer pot base sitting it in as a heat shield. Foiled the clay pot base and thought I would set the AMNPS tray on that using a couple of cut 2x4 blocks to raise the lower grate away from the tray and then set a drip pan on the lower grate over the pellet tray.
Pellet tray fired up beautifully and the pit was stable at 205* (this was a small brisket so I wanted to keep it low and slow). Put the smoking pellet tray in and assembled the smoker again to let it stabilize. Pellet tray went out!!!!!
So pulled it again, fired the pellets back up and after 10 minutes to make sure it was smoking outside the WSM, back in it goes without anything above it this time so I can see the pellet burn. Goes out again. Well crud....
I use a BBQ Guru DigiQ-II power draft and it appears since the lower vents are all closed except the one with the blower in it, there is not enough airflow when the fan it off to reliably sustain the pellet burn. And those of you with WSM's and power drafts know that the first part of a smoke with fresh coals is when the power draft is rarely on so the tray never had a chance.
Oh, well... It was worth a try. Pulled the tray and tossed a couple of chunks of Hickory on the coals and smoked like normal.
I did not buy the tray to use in the WSM but bought it for a food warmer/proofer conversion or to cold smoke so I'm not disappointed at all. Tray works fine, but it does need air flow to burn (Duh!!!). Just wanted to say if you are using a WSM and a power draft to hot smoke, the tray may not be the best choice (and in all fairness, with a WSM hot smoking I don't know if a tray would be called for anyway as the standard method is chunks of smoke wood on the coals).
Again, not dissing the tray at all as this is a great product and it performs perfectly as designed.
Photo of first fire in the tray sitting on my Weber Summit grate. Will post the brisket smoke in another thread.
Knowing I needed to shield the tray from the charcoal, I used the standard (old 2005 style) water pan empty with my clay saucer pot base sitting it in as a heat shield. Foiled the clay pot base and thought I would set the AMNPS tray on that using a couple of cut 2x4 blocks to raise the lower grate away from the tray and then set a drip pan on the lower grate over the pellet tray.
Pellet tray fired up beautifully and the pit was stable at 205* (this was a small brisket so I wanted to keep it low and slow). Put the smoking pellet tray in and assembled the smoker again to let it stabilize. Pellet tray went out!!!!!
So pulled it again, fired the pellets back up and after 10 minutes to make sure it was smoking outside the WSM, back in it goes without anything above it this time so I can see the pellet burn. Goes out again. Well crud....
I use a BBQ Guru DigiQ-II power draft and it appears since the lower vents are all closed except the one with the blower in it, there is not enough airflow when the fan it off to reliably sustain the pellet burn. And those of you with WSM's and power drafts know that the first part of a smoke with fresh coals is when the power draft is rarely on so the tray never had a chance.
Oh, well... It was worth a try. Pulled the tray and tossed a couple of chunks of Hickory on the coals and smoked like normal.
I did not buy the tray to use in the WSM but bought it for a food warmer/proofer conversion or to cold smoke so I'm not disappointed at all. Tray works fine, but it does need air flow to burn (Duh!!!). Just wanted to say if you are using a WSM and a power draft to hot smoke, the tray may not be the best choice (and in all fairness, with a WSM hot smoking I don't know if a tray would be called for anyway as the standard method is chunks of smoke wood on the coals).
Again, not dissing the tray at all as this is a great product and it performs perfectly as designed.
Photo of first fire in the tray sitting on my Weber Summit grate. Will post the brisket smoke in another thread.
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