need help with temps !!!!!!!

Evidently, other owners who could have lent a hand didn't stop by last night.

How did your cook turn out? Were you able to resolve the problem? I'm sure others will be by soon to offer advice for your next cook. Wish I could help, but I'm sorry to say that I don't have any experience with a WSM.

Wish I could have been of some help.
Longmill

If you are doing a high heat cook, which is what I do for chicken, turkey, and what I would do for slightly out of my budget tenderloin, prime rib, then you want to ideally take 2 lit chimneys and dump them on top of a bunch of unlit charcoal. Add some wood chunks, but not too many.

The unlit stuff ensures that you will not run out of fuel. The two lit chimneys, combined with empty or sand in the pan, will give lid temps in the 315-340 range. Don't ever use water in pan when your objective is a high heat cook.

If you only have one chimney, I'd run out and get another. Ideally, get two weber chimneys, or one weber and one charbroil.

If doing a lower temp cook, then light about 1/2 a chimney, or even a tad more, and dump it on a bunch of unlit. Then when your lid temps are rising you will close the bottom vents probably around 80% or so.

Even for my low temp cooks, I'll use almost one weber chimney of lit; my temps will rise fast, I shutdown the bottom when the lid temp is around 200-210, the temps will stablize around 240+-, then I crack the bottom vents back open. Lots of people use less than a chimney, but it'll take a goodly bit longer to get up to the 225-250 range. Different strokes for different folks.

i've only experienced temp problems in my wsm when it's been windy out. normally if i'm going for low temps i'll use the minion method described here. how are you lighting your charcoal and are you using briquettes or lump? also how much smoke wood are you using?

leave it in but cover it in foil so that it's easier to clean. also when going for higher temps (300+) i light a full chimney of charcoal and then put a full chimney of unlit on top, and then wait for all to ash over before putting the food on.

check out the virtual weber bullet website. there's lots of usual full info about the wsm.

I also leave the pan in it. Mine has foil covered sand. You *can* cook entirely without it, some people will do this for chicken thighs, etc. You'd likely get lid temps more in the 400+ range, so things will cook faster. You'll also get some fat dripping on coals flavor, which can be good to an extent, but I don't think I'd want a whole chicken or turkey dripping all over the coals.

You'd need to be careful if using a probe thermometer b/c there's a risk of frying it when you get above 400 or so.