Do you use a water pan on low and slows?

[cruzmisl]

Hi,
Curious if you use a water pan on your low and slows or if you go "dry"? While I'm at it do you foil any of your slow cooks (brisket, butt, ribs)?
Thanks,
Joe

[jdbower]

Water pan? What's that?

I haven't felt the need for one, but I have been tempted to use vinegar to add some flavor. The KK locks in enough moisture I doubt the water pan would be able to increase the humidity enough to make a difference and it burns steady enough the water's temperature flattening effect shouldn't matter.

For foil, the only time I use it is if I care about the looks of things like wingtips - otherwise you end up steaming the meat instead of smoking it. Most of the time I go without entirely because I'm lazy that way.
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Jeff Bower
23" Silken Black Gen2.2
19.5" Silken Black Gen2.2
Stoker,6" EZ-Que,GrillFloss,Eastman Outdoors 22" Propane Wok
Red meat won't kill you, it's the fuzzy green meat you need to watch out for!

[LarryR]

I go dry, even in my Weber Smoky Mountain (WSM) that comes with a water pan I go dry. In my opinion it doesn't make a difference in your end product and is used primarily as a heat sink in the in the WSM. Although there are some who will argue to the death that it creates a humid environment and thus a "moister" product.

I foil my briskets around 165 and if I have guests who want fall-off-the-bone ribs I'll foil my ribs. Never butts.
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Baba Booey to you all!

[cruzmisl]

I never use a water pan or foil either (for pork anyway) but had to ask since lots of people do. The question was spawned from watching this season of BBQ Pitmasters since Mixon uses a water pan and Trigg foils his ribs. So many techniques its mind boggling.

Take mustard for example, I always put my rub on the dry meat-no mustard- but lots of people use mustard. I may try the mustard this weekend on a couple of slabs.

Also brining is another area where some people do and others don't.

[Syzygies]

I've done lots of experiments along these lines. I recall a rather strident debate on exactly this question on an earlier ceramic forum; let's first celebrate the more conversational tone here.

The two salient points I believe are:

1. People get better results on full cookers.
2. It doesn't take much to tweak the humidity of a nearly empty cooker to resemble a full cooker.

That said, my new KK is much tighter than my old K7, which in turn was tighter than any piece of metal I'd tried.

I sometimes put a cup or so of water in with a cook, in some vessel such as a cup-shaped cousin to a cazuela. It's very easy to go overboard; then one is steam-smoking. Think of how good a pot of beans can be, then how much better baked beans can be than that. Same with e.g. the bark on a butt. Too much steam and the baked beans come out tasting like a pot of beans.
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She's so fine, there's no telling where the money went

[mguerra]

See the sticky at the top of the "Techniques" section, high temp brisket. Foiling is not needed in a KK, generally speaking, however it can be used for a fast cook. On butts or briskets. The purpose in a fast cook is tenderization more than moisture retention. These hot fast cooks come out as good if not better than low and slow. Low and slow has a place, however, if for no other reason than purely emotional! If you do some low and slows and some hot fast cooks, you will start to decide when you may want to do one or the other. But for low and slows you really don't need to foil. Here's one reason you might want to, however. Let's say in the latter part of a low and slow you need or want to go do something and you are not sure you will be back at exactly the right time to pull the meat off. Foil it. In this scenario you ARE using the foil for moisture retention. Even if you really let it go longer than you might like, as long as the fire temp is 220ish, and you have the meat foiled, it's going to come out excellent.
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Michael Guerra,M.D.
Kerrville, Texas