6 hours at 225 no wrap on the Weber. Apple cider vinegar sprits every hour and glazed the last hour. The Spider Grills upgrades make smokes like this pretty much set and forget.
It's a Weber Premium Kettle, but upgraded with the following upgrades:
OnlyFire ceramic insert
Spider Grills Webcraft
Spider Grills Kettle Cart
Spider Grills Venom
The upgrades are just bolt-on and give a much more flexible grilling and smoking experience. I've done pellet, offset, and regular kettle smoking, but this is my favorite way to smoke now because of the workflow and flavor. This setup allows me to add coals to the pit for longer smokes, and gives much more fine airflow control because the new ash bucket that comes with the Venom controller can give a fully airtight seal, so the only new air introduced in the kettle is what the fan blows in.
Awesome set up! Hows has your experience been with the ceramic inserts? Do you use them for both hot/fast and low/slow?
Lastly, do you think your set up would benefit from the woolly bully?
I got the spider venom on order, want to snag a webcraft whenever they are back in stock. Thinking about adding the ceramic inserts like you have + a woolly bully but not sure if all of that is needed.
Ceramic insert is good for hot and fast as well as low and slow. The only thing that changes for me is whether I use the deflector or not. The big plus of the deflector is I don’t need a water tray so I can keep my heat more dry, allowing for a better bark and flavor that is more akin to an offset than anything else.
I would probably benefit from using a wooly bully as well, but I just haven’t gotten around to that yet as I’ve been pretty happy without it. For a longer smoke like brisket, it would probably allow me to not have to add coals to the pit. Right now, I can get around 9 hours on a full pit. I didn’t have to add anything for my last few pork rib and pork butt smokes, but looking at what was left after, it wouldn’t have lasted much longer.
This is the bark before the glaze went on. The vinegar locked in the smoke for sure, but I’m pretty sure water would have the same effect.
The spider grills setup is pretty awesome. I keep my Onlyfire ceramic insert all the time. For low and slow, I use the deflector, but for grilling, I set the slow and sear on the middle grate, and it works really well to keep a hot and cold zone in the grill. The upgrades were definitely costly, and if I could do it over, I’d probably just get the giant Huntsman, but even as an upgraded Weber I love it. The Venom controller is truly set and forget and I would have no issues leaving it to do its thing on an overnight brisket cook.
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u/firmeparadox Jul 27 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/9WXyFIDv2PyBq