Water pan and cooking time

[EdSz]

Relatively new Smokefire user. So far, I love it. Last night I smoked two bone-in chicken breast over a water pan with apple juice. Smoker Temperature set to 350. Took almost an hour. Does it Take longer for food to cook over a water pan?

 

[JpsBBQ]

Relatively new Smokefire user. So far, I love it. Last night I smoked two bone-in chicken breast over a water pan with apple juice. Smoker Temperature set to 350. Took almost an hour. Does it Take longer for food to cook over a water pan?

Well, the water pan is a heat sync so it will absorb the heat. The radiant heat will be really blocked too. Water pans imo where essential tools used in offset cookers in an extremely dry high airflow environment. While not a big deal negatively for long cooks they are completely unnecessary for shorter cooks and probably a hinderance to your objective.

 

[rwhapham]

Relatively new Smokefire user. So far, I love it. Last night I smoked two bone-in chicken breast over a water pan with apple juice. Smoker Temperature set to 350. Took almost an hour. Does it Take longer for food to cook over a water pan?

Also, you'll probably find that, at lower cook temps, your SF is most likely running cooler than the advertised temp. This has been my experience, and I know that of many others that also run a separate air probe during cooks. At 350F, I'd say that is in the grey area between "smoking" and "grilling" temps. When I'm at or above 400F, my SF is pretty accurate. But when I'm trying to go low-and-slow between 250F and 275F, I can find that the pit can be as much as 50 degrees lower as reported by my air probe. Which can result in considerably longer cook times. So I often play the game and bump the SF up to, say, 315F so I can get an actual somewhere between 250F and 275F.