Weber 2820 Smokey Mountain Cooker/Smoker

But if you can afford the extra for the WSM, you will get much better temperature control, and getting good temperature control means you can keep a good consistent low temeperature for doing some truly outstanding smoke cooking.

I am by no means an expert on the subject, only having used my WSM about 10 times. Even so, I have been getting results better than any ribs I have tasted at any restaurant (with the exception of real honest to goodness BBQ joints that cook over hardwood for 12 hours plus...). You can tell real barbecue because it has a pink smoke ring in the meat, which I always get when I use the WSM.

You will want to check on the net for the virtual WSM web page, it has a lot of information, and I found the info there a lot more useful than the methods recommended in the owner's manual.

This cooker is not for the impatient who want instant results, your first few times using it may be frustrating until you learn to control where the temperature is going, not where it is right now. But stick with it and you will start to make some truly great bbq. And understand that you are going to be cooking low and slow, which means it is going to take 4, 5, 6 hours or more to do ribs, but once you get the hang of it, they will be some of the best ribs you have tasted.

More than a fair number of barbecue champions use the WSM get results as good as if not better than those guys using the $1000 plus offset pits. The WSM is a great value and the perfect starter "pit" for someone thinking about getting into serious barbecue.

(You can do yourself a favor by using hickory wood chunks as part of the fuel, and real lump charcoal, not briquettes. Briquettes are nice and all, but they are filled with clay and other impurities, really if you are going to the trouble of using charcoal instead of gas, go with real charcoal if you can find it)


Create your own slow-cooked barbecue with the WSM Cooker   July 20, 2000
Chris Allingham (San Jose, CA)
218 out of 222 found this review helpful

If you're in the market for your first barbecue cooker, or if you currently own an inexpensive cooker that's frustrating and difficult to use, consider purchasing the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker (WSM).

At home in the backyard and on the barbecue competition circuit, the WSM is not the cheapest cooker on the market today, but it's quality and ease of use make it an excellent value. It benefits from the same quality construction, materials, and customer service as all Weber products, and it's superior design makes it very easy to use.

One of the keys to success in creating great barbecue is being able to control the temperature of your cooker. This is critical when cooking "low and slow" barbecue for 10 to 12 hours or longer, for example when making beef brisket or pork shoulder. This is where the WSM really shines! Unlike other cookers, you don't have to babysit the WSM to maintain a low, consistent cooking temperature. A good airtight design and a series of adjustable air vents make precise temperature control and adjustment extremely simple. You control the cooker, it doesn't control you!

Two cooking grates provide the capacity to cook up to 8 slabs of ribs, or two whole briskets, or even six whole chickens! A water pan provides a moist cooking environment for your meats, while directing heat up and around your meat for indirect cooking. A generous charcoal chamber holds many hours of fuel, as well as your favorite smoke wood chunks--like oak, hickory, apple, and cherry--to create that great smoked barbecue flavor.

Assembly is fast and easy, taking only a few minutes with a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. The WSM also comes with an owner's manual, a premium vinyl cover, and a 10 year limited warranty.

The WSM is a fantastic product that will provide you and your family and friends with years of great barbecue. The quality will be remembered long after the price is forgotten!


Poor Quality Control   June 17, 2005
Bradley D. Horton (Jefferson, Maryland United States)
118 out of 142 found this review helpful

(Update 2/3/06)...Whooooa...look at the price hike since my last review of this product...OUCH...I DOUBLE MY SUGGESTIONS WHEN I FIRST REVIEWED THIS PRODUCT LAST SUMMER...ACCEPT ONLY PERFECTION FROM WEBER...DO NOT PAY well OVER $200 FOR ANYTHING LESS!!! I say this after experience with the product...which is great if it is as air tight as possible...you'll have few problems if this is the case...make sure all pieces fit perfectly and that none of them are "out of round"...see www.virutalweberbullet.com when you unpack and look over your smoker...be picky...you'll thank me later...now, read my first review...it still holds true today...

Well, I did my research and found out four things about the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker...1) It's one of the best home, and even competition, smokers out there and can help cue-heads like myself make some great food, 2) It's pricey - probably with a healthy mark-up, 3) the materials used to make the smoker are of decent to high quality, and 4) the initial quality of construction or packing at the factory can often be "spotty" and/or inconsistent...with all in mind I ordered a WSM from Amazon...

The box arrived unhurt indicating smooth shipping...I opened the package and found a damaged charcoal bowl...severe chipping, a flat spot, and way out of round...this was frustrating so I called Weber Customer Service who would replace the bowl BUT they didn't have an estimate as to when a bowl would ship and to call back in a week to see IF there would be an estimate...given that I ordered the smoker as a present for father's day and the weekend I said "no" to placing my name on the waiting list and called Amazon...to their credit they shipped me a new one and picked up the damaged WSM...

The second smoker arrived showing an unhurt box...I opened the box and saw no chipping but then I noticed that one of the rivets on the charcoal bowl holding a heat vent was poorly installed with the vent swinging freely with no resistance (it opened and closed on its own)...I explored further and found the charcoal bowl over 1/2" out of round...I am sending back the second WSM for a refund...looks like I'm out of luck for father's day...

In both cases these problems should have been caught at Weber's factory and I'm finding that even on the pro-WSM discussion boards there are lots of discussions centered upon a recent lack of quality control. I am going to get a WSM BUT I'm going to find one locally so that I can deal with any issues quicker and review the initial quality of the smoker BUT I'll pay more for this privilege in my area...so, in other words, due to Weber's inability to maintain quality control at their factory I'll have to spend even more $$...if the potential of this smoker wasn't so great I'd have given up on it...

My advice for new buyers of the WSM given my experience and research is this...it's got a long distinguished history and many folks today get their WSM in fine shape...on the other hand...BUYER BEWARE...things at Weber seem to be slipping a bit during the manufacturing process BUT their customer service is usually very good...(they should get it right the first time though!)...look over the contents of your package very carefully...look for out of round bowls, chipping, missing parts, and so on...you're paying not to put up with even minor issues...Good Luck!


A great investment. By far the best smoker i've ever owned.   May 30, 2007
Steven (Colorado, USA)
45 out of 45 found this review helpful

I have only owned a couple smokers in my life, and after purchasing this one - I don't plan on owning anything else. The Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker (WSM) is a simple, yet incredibly effective water smoker.

The WSM has two cooking sections which allows you to smoke a good amount of food (such as a whole turkey and a whole ham simultaneously). The 18 1/2 inch grates allow plenty of food, but you might have to get a little tricky if you want to smoke something like 8 racks of ribs. This can be done if you roll the ribs up and use a skewer to hold them in place. If you aren't trying to entertain large parties, then this is the perfect family smoker.

The WSM is coated with porcelain enamel, much like the One-Touch kettle grills. The grates are triple-nickel-plated. The WSM is very sturdy. The material is nice and hefty, you don't get the sense that this smoker was cheaply made. One of the only issues I have with this smoker is the access door. Instead of being hinged it comes completely off the smoker. It can take a little bit of figiting to get it to attach to the smoker, but this is an extremely small issue.

The reason people love this smoker is because with a single batch of charcoal you can smoke for an incredibly long time. If you use the minion method then you can smoke for up to 18-20 hours without adding anymore charcoal! For those who aren't aware, the minion method is where you fill the charcoal ring with unlit charcoal, light about 10-15 briquettes and place them on top of the unlit charcoal. Please don't use the minion method with pre-soaked coals. My first smoke was a brisket and for the first 5 hours it stayed exactly at 245 degrees without any adjustments! I thought my thermometer was broken... it wasn't - this smoker is incredibly efficient. Another example is the second time I smoked with this. I smoked a 10 lb brisket, started at midnight. It finished 5:00 PM the following day. That's 17 hours right there. I roused the coals a bit and was able to smoke some stuffed jalapenos for another 2 hours. That's 19 hours on a single batch of charcoal! I am very impressed. I have a Brinkman smoker and when I used that smoker I would get about 2 hours of burn time. The WSM is just so much more efficient and has MUCH better air control.

Here are a couple of tips if you plan on buying a WSM (and you should!).
Get a decent enough thermometer, such as a candy thermometer so you can check your temperature at the lid. This will become instrumental in your cooking.

Unfortunately the WSM has a small water pan. What you should do is buy a replacement Brinkmann Smoke N Grill charcoal pan (don't get the water pan, make sure you get the charcoal pan). You can buy one directly from Brinkmann for about $13.00. If you look hard enough you can find them online for around $5.00 - $10.00. The Brinkmann charcoal pan fits perfectly inside the WSM as a water pan (some say it fits even better!). It also holds more then double the amount of water then the standard WSM water pan. This allows you about 7-8 hours of cooking before needing to refill the pan, which is much better then the 2-3 you get with the standard water pan. Once your temps stabilize you can easily do overnight cooks and also get some shut-eye!

To conclude I would like to say that if you are even thinking about getting a vertical water smoker then stop looking right now. This smoker is near perfect in every single way. With a few tiny modifications you can own one of the best smokers in the world at this price!


great water smoker   January 4, 2003
Jeff (seattle, wa)
43 out of 46 found this review helpful

This is a great smoker for beginners. It gives you a pretty decent amount of control over the temperature and as long as you don't crank up the heat too much, you'll get great results each time.

The overall construction of the smoker is great. I'd like to see a slightly larger water pan and longer screws that hold in the bottom cooking grate, as it can get a bit tipsy if not centered correctly. No complaints otherwise. I don't really mind not having a built in thermometer since I'd rather use a wireless probe and have the readings sent to me in front of the tv instead of having to go outside and check it. It would also nice to have some sort of way to clean out the ashes inside without taking the grates/sides off, but I'm not sure if that can be accomplished without sacrificing the ability of the smoker to hold a constant temperature. Besides, you have to clean the insides about as often as you empty out the ashes.

As for use, here's a basic overview: It has a bottom section with a grate and ring to hold the charcoal, and 3 adjustable vents. The middle section has a door to add coals/wood chips, and the hardware to hold the water pan and cooking grates. The top section has an adjustable vent. It's very heavy duty and the bullet design really helps to maintain heat and make the coals last a long time. Not much sticks to the inner coating, so intead of greasing up and sticking, the ashy residue tends to flake off quite easily instead of sticking to the sides-it makes cleaning easy, but you have to do it every time or you'll get strange orange flakes on your food. The bottom vents draw in air to feed the coals-they regulate the temperature-I didn't find much use for them in the summer (usually 70-80 degrees), so they usually stay closed, but in the winter when it cools down, I usually need to open them about halfway to maintain my cooking temperature, which is usually between 160 and 210. I keep the temperatures down to make the smoking process longer, so more smoke gets into the meat, and to prevent the water in the pan from boiling, which ends up steaming the meat. The use of vents does mean that air is moving through the smoker, so if you're smoking for long periods of time, you should use the water pan to prevent the meat from drying out. The top vent is handy to drop a thermometer probe into and it will help keep the temperature down if it's opened, so a lot of fine tuning will be in order when you're using it between the top and bottom vents to reach whatever temp you want. The unit does hold a lot of charcoal, so you can pack it in and do a marathon session and not have to add coals for a long time-I closed off the vents one time after I was done and it was still smoking a whole day later-needless to say, it's not easy to extinguish a fire in there since there's a lot of air inside.

There is a lot of cooking surface inside. I do wish there was a little bit more room between the top and bottom grates-there's not quite enough room to stack up 3 whole chickens and have the top rack on-but if you're creative with the space, you can manage to do 6 at one time. It doesn't take much more fuel or wood, so I usually pack the thing full. One of these days I'll probably step up to a pit or a large unit with an offset box that doesn't require a water pan-but until then this smoker will do the job just fine.

One more note-if you smoke food at low temperatures like I do, be careful with large items like turkey. They'll spend a lot of time in the danger zone-where the internal temperature of the meat is suitable for bacterial growth. To play it safe, you may want to brine the meat (give it a nice soak in a salt/sugar solution for a few days, and don't use a metal container). Invest in a good meat thermometer so you can get internal temperature readings on meat so you know it's done. You can play if safe and overshoot a little without penalty on this smoker-with the water pan, there's no chance of the meat drying out.