Sponges/towel in water pan?

[wesir]

Saw this video from waltons where they recommended putting automotive sponges into the water pan to increase surface area and as a result humidity:


Anyone tried this before? Seems to make sense in theory but figured I'd ask. I'm assuming you would want to get sponges that hadn't been chemically dyed but other than that and not using the sponge you wash the car with wasn't sure how safe it was. The other thing he reccomended was to put a dry wick towel across the bottom rack and have the end sitting in the water but not sure how that would work out since those things have gone through a bunch of processing and who knows what they'd give off when they get hot. Thanks

 

[thirdeye]

I've never heard of using sponges, but some people use BBQ replacement lava rock in the water pan. When used instead of water it just acts as a barrier much like sand does. When using lava rock with water it increases the surface area. But I bet sponges provide more surface area since they could be placed upright. How about using a baked potato spike rack to hold the sponges upright in the pan??

 

[hoity toit]

Interesting, I will be following this thread.

HT

 

[mike243]

Seems a lot simpler to just put water in the pan like I have always done lol wasted rack space trying to reinvent the wheel imo

 

[one eyed jack]

I started out using water in my 18" WSM. It was very messy and a clean up problem.

I can just imagine how nasty those sponges would be after one smoke.

I cut a disk to fit in the WSM water bowl, (To reduce it's volume), filled the rest with sand creating a dome on top. Covered the whole thing with foil, and never looked back.

The only difference that I have noticed smoking with sand instead of water, is that clean up is a good bit easier.