A. We suggest using a fruit wood, like apple or cherry, for your pork ribs. Fruit woods give a fantastic smoky-sweetness to the meat, a great compliment to pork, poultry, and red meat, too!

More about wood:

Hickory: This is one of the strongest smoking woods, with a robust wood flavor, so be careful not to use too much! Hickory works well mixed with apple, as well. Apple wood tones down the hickory and adds a bit of sweetness. Use hickory on brisket, pork butts, rib, whole chickens and turkey.

Pecan: Milder than hickory, pecan is a great wood for smoking a variety of meats. Pecan’s well-rounded nutty and sweet flavor works well mixed with cherry wood, should you decide to experiment!

Cherry: Backyard Bash owner Jay Mathiesen never met a piece of meat he didn’t like smoked with cherry wood! It’s richly sweet flavor is a perfect choice for Kansas City-style barbecue. And you’ll notice a nice dark smoke ring with cherry wood, too!

Apple: Apple’s light, sweet flavor is great for poultry and pork, lending just the right amount of smoky flavor without overpowering. Try mixing your apple wood with hickory to add a bit of sweetness!

Maple: Mild and sweet, maple is delicious on pork and poultry, much like apple!

Find out more in the video by clicking here!

Testimonial from Tommy Jaynes:
I purchased the new 22″ Weber Smokey Mountain a little over a month ago and have had several great smokes out of it already. The unit is fantastic, just like the 18″, but so much bigger! I was able to cook 4 slabs of ribs (rolled) 2 pork loins (10 pounds) and 2 pork shoulders (20 pounds) all at once with tons of room for more. The unit held at around 230 for 16 hours on one fill of charcoal with very minimal effort on my part. I have been extremely impressed with the WSM and wish I had more time to smoke!

Product review by Dwain Gleason:
The new Weber Smokey Mountain bullet smoker is fantastic. It’s just as easy to use as the previous 18″ model, but with some great improvements. The extra 4 inches of cooking space doesn’t sound like too much, but if you do the math it actually gives you half again as much area to cook on as the 18″ model. The built-in thermometer is a great touch, it’s very well made and seems to be very accurate. The extra handle on the lid makes it easier to get the lid off and on, as it’s heavier than the previous model. The larger access door on the front makes it easy to get to both the charcoal ring and the water pan, and the notches in the bottom door make it so you can leave the door open without having to take it off of the unit – a small but very welcome feature! The unit is as tight as a drum, and held its temperature for an overnight brisket cook terrifically – right at 240 degrees for over eight hours with only a peek from me every few hours to check on the water pan. I’d say Weber has done it again with a terrific smoker, and I plan to be firing this thing up almost every weekend for both home and contest use.

Read more of Dwain’s thoughts on the new WSM on his blog!

Well, with my experience, extensive research and polling of many barbequers in the know, this is likely not the case. I have smoked on a Primo Ceramic, Traeger Pellet, Tucker Trailer all the way up to a 6’ Austin Rotisserie Trailer and have never used water.

The theory is that the water would provide a humid environment while stabilizing temperatures and help keep meat from drying out. In my experience, spraying the meat with apple juice or mopping with your favorite concoction will do much more for keeping the meat moist than a water pan.

This is not to say that water pans don’t have beneficial uses based on the design of your smoker. For example, the Good-One Smoker, with its bottom drain valve, benefits from water in the pan when it comes time for clean up. Draining the pan while the water is still hot carries away the fat drippings, and such is the case in other smoker designs.

Just the opposite for a WSM (Weber Bullet). Lining the bottom of the water pan with foil and filling it with sand to 1-2” from the top and covering with foil will make clean up much easier. By design the water pan in the WSM does two things: protects meat from fire and aides in stabilizing temperature, both of which can be accomplished with sand, just as well as with water.

And there is a drawback with water in the WSM that you won’t get with sand. Water will turn to steam and rise to the top of the smoker, where it mixes with the creosote that has formed there. The creosote and water mixture then drips back down onto your food.

But don’t take my word for it, try it yourself or do your own research. Food for thought I like to say. If water is beneficial to your smoker design, use it. If not, see if it makes sense to use sand, or go without.

If you have questions about grills, grilling, really anything BBQ, then email Jay and he’ll try to answer them. We may post the Q & A on the website to share the knowledge with our other customers. Contact Jay with your question now!