The Minion Method

Hello, my name is John with ktchndad and we’re going to be going over how to use the minion method for smoking.

It is definitely the best method to use and what I would suggest if you have a Weber Smokey Mountain.

Step 1

So step one of using the minion method is to put about 15 to 20 pieces of charcoal in your chimney. It doesn’t have to be exact, you just have to be kind of close.

I think I counted about 17 in there, but that’s just for the purposes of this video. Usually, I don’t pay that much attention.

I would say just about 15, maybe less than 22, 23, and you’re in pretty good shape. So just close-ish.

Step 2

Next, you’re going to want to light your charcoal lighter. However you do that, I suggest the charcoal starters, these things are fantastic.

Then just let that sit and light and we will get onto our next step. Our charcoal is pretty much ready now.

Let me talk about the setup here we’ve got. We’ve got our hardwood for smoking, line across the top of the charcoal, we have all of the charcoal filling the ring except for, if you can tell right there, we have an opening in the middle. So this is what’s going to give us our long smoke time.

What’s going to happen is, we’re going to pour our hot charcoal right in the center there and it’s going to slowly light spread outwards and that’s what makes this the easiest method to cook with for a

charcoal smoker and not having to constantly adjust your vents and adjusting everything else. ‘Cause the charcoal is just slowly going to spread and just mostly maintain that standard temperature.

Now, before we dump the charcoal in, I would say it’s best to close these things up until it’s about just the tip of your pinky that can fit in there, for exact reference.

It includes all three bottom vents into that, and that’s pretty much all we need to do here.

So now our charcoal is ready to go. Might have even let it go a little bit longer, but you can see this is the setup that we just had chatted about. I am pouring it right into that center part.

Step 3

Now let’s assemble the smoker.

Okay, now that we have reassembled the smoker from when we lit that charcoal, imported in the center of the charcoal ring in the bottom, and now you see a little bit of smoke coming out.

We have the vents open to just that little pinky touch. Or maybe like the size of a pencil.

One thing to note here is, this top vent is always left all the way open.

So we’re never adjusting the temperature with the top vents, only the bottom vents.

So, while we wait for this thing to get to temperature, the next step will be to throw on the meats that we’re cooking.

Alright, and once you get it up to the temperature, it is time to add your meat on. I am doing some pork today, so that’s what I’ve placed on here.

See these guys going right in here? There are two layers of that, it should be fun.

Maintaining the temperature

I try to keep my smoker at 225, give or take. Again it’s not an exact science, I’m sure professionals will tell you differently, but let’s just try to do 225 give or take, 5 degrees, either way, 10 degrees either way.

Especially if you’re starting first learning this minion method. Again, we’ll keep an eye on this temperature now that we’re in this range and adjust the bottom vent, remember that’s how we’re adjusting the temperature.

We are not touching the top vent. It’s wide open for the whole process, we are just going to be adjusting those three small bottom guys.

Alright, so you can see, here we’re a little bit higher on the temperature I like to usually target. No big deal happens sometimes.

So you’re going to want to get an oven mitt or a stick or something, and we are just going to slightly close the vent up a little bit, right there.

And remember, that top vent is all the way open.

So that should do what we needed for us to fall back a little bit a few degrees back to where I’d like this to be.

Overview

Alright, just as a quick overview of the steps that we covered previously. I was able to maintain that 225 temperature today, give or take 10 degrees with minimal shifting of the vents as you saw.

And we were able to hold the temperature for about 14 hours so it really will put your mind to rest if you’re looking at a charcoal smoker, in thinking that an electric smoker is the only way that you can maintain temperature without having to babysit the smoker, you know, all day.

‘Cause a 14-hour smoke, that’s a pretty long process. You don’t want to sit there and adjust it every 3 seconds. So using the minion method on this smoker, we were able to do that.

That’s it, I’ll catch you guys out grilling next time.