The latest addition to my outdoor cooking arsenal is my new Smokey Joe Mini WSM. This started out life as a Weber Smokey Joe Silver and with a few extra bits and pieces, is now a competent little smoker.
Weber produces three models of the Smokey Mountain:
These can be brought from $199 USD to $399 USD from Amazon – and locally in New Zealand they are a lot more expensive starting from $699 to $899. The 14” version isn’t available locally and shipping from Amazon makes importing a bit uneconomical for my needs so this post over at the Virtual Weber Bullet caught my interest.
I’m not going to go into the details and how-to of the construction of the Smokey Joe Mini WSM as you can find the details in the link above. I will however list the parts that I used for my build.
- Weber Smokey Joe Silver
- Smokey Joe Cooking Grate
- Vasconia 32” Steamer Pot
- 3” BBQ Thermometer
- Terracotta Saucer
Putting it together was really easy and didn’t take much time. The terracotta saucer is used to diffuse the heat – enabling some sort of temperature control and allowing me to hit the low and slow zone. Using a smaller saucer will allow for higher temperatures. The extra cooking grate allows for two cooking spaces – this is ideal as on the kettle I have limited space and only been able to smoke one thing at a time.
Lighting the smoker is as simple as loading the coal chamber with briquettes and lumps of wood for smoke and adding 6-8 lit briquettes. I’ve found my temperatures stabalise after 30 or so minutes.
Once the smoker is going it is pretty much set and forget. I set my temperature probes and have the remote receiver with me to keep an eye on temperatures but I have rarely had to do anything further than wait for the food to cook.
I’m not sure if I am going to paint it but I do want to add some levers to the vents for easier control when the smoker is hot and some twist clips to attach the base and lid to the pot for ease of movement if the need ever arises during a cook.
If you are currently smoking on a Weber kettle and want to move into a dedicated smoker but don’t want to drop the cash, consider giving the Smokey Joe Mini WSM a go – it was a fun project and is going to get a lot of use.
