Starting the Smoker (Minion Method):
- Light a fire starter chimney full of charcoal
- Put a ring of unlit charcoal in the base of the smoker
- Add a few chunks of wood
- Cover the water pan in foil for easy cleanup
- Add the lit coals from fire starter chimney to the center of the ring of unlit charcoal
- Assemble the rest of the smoker, adding hot water to the water pan
- Add wood to the top of the lit coals to start the smoking (either before assembly or through the side door)
- Add your meat... and you're off!
I have eluded to my method for firing up my smoker in previous blog posts, but I realize I did so in a relatively high level manner. So, here's a post dedicated solely to my main method for starting my Weber Smokey Mountain.
It's worth mentioning, this technique is not necessary if you are going to cook something that only takes a short time on the smoker (such as smoked salmon). However, most of the things I have been cooking so far - ribs, pork shoulder, brisket, etc. - all require 4+ hours of smoke time, so this method works well.
The method is called the Minion Method. You can google it to read more about its history if you want. But essentially, the game plan behind it is to set up a ring of unlit coals in the smoker, and then put a chamber full of hot coals in the middle of it. As those hot coals burn continually, they slowly start to light the unlit coals surrounding them. And from there, the fire burns longer, and the smoker maintains heat for a longer period of time.
But enough talk - let's get into how I actually do it, with some pictures.
Newspaper in the bottom of the fire starter chimney
Lighting the newspaper
Coals blazing and ready to go
To get started on any smoker or grill that runs on coals, you have to light them on fire. Some people may choose to use a pile of charcoal and some lighter fluid, but I think most would agree that a fire chimney starter is the best approach.
To use it, you simply fill the bottom with some newspaper, as in picture #1. Then, turn it over and fill the chamber with unlit charcoal (I use the Kingsford Blue & White). Depending on the length of cook determines how much charcoal you need to light. The more you light, the longer and hotter the fire will burn in the smoker. I usually aim for about 3/4th of the way full for my longer cooks like pork shoulder and brisket (10+ hours), and will do a bit less for something like ribs (4-5 hours).
Once you've filled the chimney as you like, light the newspaper through the bottom slots in a few different areas, as I'm doing in picture #2. Once the paper is lit, you'll start seeing smoke pour out of the chimney. And from there, the process is started. Within about 10-15 minutes, the charcoal will all be lit, as shown in picture #3. You can tell they're ready when the orange of the flame has made its way all the way near the top of the charcoal.
During that 10-15 minute waiting period, you can start assembling the rest of the smoker and setting up the rest of the unlit charcoal.
Unlit charcoal in a ring with space in the middle
Adding a few chunks of wood
Covering the water bowl in foil
The first thing you can do while the charcoals are lighting is set up the base of the smoker. As you can see in the first of these pictures, you will take a bunch of unlit charcoal and put it in a circular ring. You have to leave space in the middle of it, because that's where the lit charcoal is going to go.
This is the key to the Minion Method, as mentioned previously. With the lit coals sitting in the center of that ring, the unlit coals that surround them will slowly start to burn throughout the entire cooking process. Thus, the fire lasts longer.
In the second of these pictures, you can see that I added a few pieces of wood to the unlit coals. These, too, will pick up the heat from the lit coals over time add more smoke to the smoker, at a later time.
Lastly, and just for the sake of making clean-up easier, I cover the water bowl in foil as you can see in the last picture of this group. Throughout the cook, the various smoked meats drip fat and juices into this bowl, which is already filled with water. The combination is pretty gross. So when clean-up time comes, having the ability to just pour out the water, take off the foil, and throw it all out, makes everything easier.
Unassembled Weber Smokey Mountain
The first picture of this group is the Weber Smokey Mountain, unassembled, but ready to be put together. All that is missing is the addition of the hot coals.
On the left is the base, where you can see the ring of unlit coals and the few pieces of wood that I added. In the middle of the picture is the middle of the smoker. I should have had a closer up shot to show this better, but you can see just a bit of the water pan covered in foil, and then the grate put on top of it.
You can also see my thermometer base hanging on the outside. I don't have a picture of it here, but this is connected to two wires and temperature gauges inside of the smoker - one for the grill temperature, and the other for the meat temperature. You can also see the Weber Smokey Mountain's door, which can be used to stoke the fire, add air to increase temperature, and add wood throughout the cook. (In fact, the last time I made my ribs, I didn't use enough lit charcoal to get the grill temperature hot enough, when combined with the outside air temperature being only 30F. Because of that, I had to open the smoker door for about 10 minutes, and it increased my grill temperature from 200F to 280F. Then I closed the door, partially closed some of the vents, and brought the temperature back into the 225-240F range I was targeting).
To the right, you can see the lid. Pretty self-explanatory there - but just in case, it goes on top when everything is assembled.
Lit coals poured on top of unlit coals
As the final step, you take the fire chimney full of red-hot coal (as pictured back at the beginning), and you pour it into the center of the ring of unlit coals. You would then want to place 2-3 pieces of wood on top of the lit coals, as they'll start the smoking process immediately. If you aren't going to be putting your meat on pretty much right away, you can hold off on this step, and add the wood chunks through the side door when you're ready to put on the meat.
After this, you can assemble the rest of the smoker. Put the middle section on top of the bottom section, filling the water pan with hot water (in most cook cases, but not all - depends on the specific recipe), and put the lid on top of it all.
I aways leave the top vent on the lid open, throughout the entire cook. I also leave the bottom three vents open when I first assemble the smoker, to let the temperature start raising. Once it hits my target temperature inside the smoker (typically 225F degrees area), I begin playing with the vents to get it to level off and stop increasing, closing some of the vents partially or entirely (though again, never the top vent - I always leave that fully open).
And with that, the smoker is ready for some meat.. until next time!
Starting the Smoker (Minion Method):
- Light a fire starter chimney full of charcoal
- Put a ring of unlit charcoal in the base of the smoker
- Add a few chunks of wood
- Cover the water pan in foil for easy cleanup
- Add the lit coals from fire starter chimney to the center of the ring of unlit charcoal
- Assemble the rest of the smoker, adding hot water to the water pan
- Add wood to the top of the lit coals to start the smoking (either before assembly or through the side door)
- Add your meat... and you're off!
