Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
Does everyone agree that the water pan is pretty much just for heat stabilization and not for making the meat moist? I was going to smoke some split breasts today without the water pan.
I agree with that SS. It will be a little harder to control the heat, but not too tough. How are you preparing the meat? Anything to make that breast meat juicier? Actually I'm just hungry.
Yep, thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s pretty much the way she works, as long as you can keep your temps reasonable you can smoke without it. It just tends to mellow out those heat spikes.
PC,
Nothing special, I just sprayed the split breasts down with pam, applied some rub and grilled 18 on the charcoal grill. I am doing the same thing with 8 more on the smoker without the water pan.
I was doing some reading last night about WSM's and came across an idea that sounded interesting and should work for any water smoker. They were filling the water pan with crumpled up foil balls (about 3/4 inch Dia.) and then covering the top of the pan w/ foil. Leave a little valley/depression in the middle of the covering sheet of foil to catch the grease. The balls were supposed to aid as a heat sink like water does and I wondered if the lack of moisture might help crisp the skin.
Sound reasonable - it'll reflect the heat as well.
I use water/juice to help keep my heat up in the cold until the last few hours and the skin is crispy.
Also tried sticking a few of those ceramic charcoal brickettes around the inside of water pan instead of water or juice and that helps keep the heat up too.