Add water or no water in WSM?

[1ROW]

I use water in my pan occasionally. Usually for long overnight cooks where I'm sleeping and want to keep things steady, works well for that. However, every time I use water it steams off the seasoning inside the cooker. The next day the nice black grease is brown and flakey and I have to scrape it all off. Anyone else have this problem?

[rjmitch89]

I don't find water to necessarily  "hold" temps in the WSM. When I smoke poultry, I won't use water and my temps stay in the 325-350 range. With the same setup using water in the pan, my temps stay in the 225-250 range. Just my experience.


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[HoosierKettle]

I have a question regarding the water pan.  I'm planning on doing a turkey and will leave the water pan dry.  I've only used wsm once and used water and lined the underside of the water pan with foil to eliminate having to clean char from the underside of the pan.  If I do the same method but leave water out of the pan, do I run the risk of melting the aluminum foil or is that just being paranoid?

[iCARRY]

I have never ran water in my bowl. Always wrap in foil. Never had an issue. Usually the bottom foil lasts me all season. The bowl I replace every time as it acted like a drip pan and caught all the drippings.


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[HoosierKettle]

Thanks @iCARRY. I figured as much but rather be safe than sorry.


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[jeffrackmo]

I don't use water in the pan.  I foil wrapped it, placed new  ceramic briqs from a gasser project I had years ago in the foiled water pan.  I then foiled over them keeping a bowl in the foil to catch drippings. The pan full of briqs acts like a great heat sync.  1 bottom vent open 1/3 and top vent open 1/2 keeps me in the 240 260 range.  If I need to use h20, I just use a foil pan on the lower grate.