Weber Bottom Vent Marking

Improving Weber Performance at Zero Cost !

One of the essential ingredients of a successful hot smoking session is smoke temperature control. The first step to obtain temperature control is to know exactly what you are doing. A Weber Gold kettle grill has a beautiful bottom ventilation mechanism. However, you can't see the exact open / close position of the bottom valves from the outside while you're smoking.

Discover how to easily improve your Weber Gold barbecue.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mark Your Weber !!!!

Open Position

To mark the "just open position" of the bottom vent holes, first move the bottom vent handle to the left until the vent holes are in a completely closed position, then move the handle back to the point where the vent holes are just 99% open.

Using a waterproof marker, mark the position of the handle.

In this way, you can easily find back the position where the bottom valve is just 99% open.

Please note that we are not really interested in the last 1% or so. To mark the full 100% open position would move the marking far to the right and would make it impossible to get a good feel of valve positions between 50% and 100% open.

Closed Position

To mark the "closed position" of the bottom vent holes, first move the bottom vent handle to the right until the vent holes are in a completely open position, then move the handle back to the point where the vent holes are just closed 100%.

Using a waterproof marker, mark the position of the handle.

In this way, you can easily find back the position where the bottom valve is just 100% closed.

Half Open Position

To mark the "50% open position" of the bottom vent holes, first move the bottom vent handle to the left until the vent holes are in a completely closed position, then move the handle back to the point where the vent holes are about 50% open. ("about" 50% is good enough for backyard smokers like us)

Using a waterproof marker, mark the position of the handle.

Please note that the 50% open marking is not exactly halfway between the open and closed markings.

Related subjects:

To obtain sustained lower heat and improved temperature control, and to increase the grate area and be able to accommodate more meat or larger cuts, I developed an improved hot smoking method whereby the Weber Grill is set up for indirect grilling on one side.

While this method for improving Weber smoking performance was initially just called Juancho's Split Grill, it is now also referred to by visitors as the Blue Smoke BBQ Smoker.

Whereas Juancho's Split Grill will increase capacity and improve performance of your Weber Grill, Juancho's Double Grill will double the indirect grilling and hot smoking capacity.

If you want to check out more BBQ "technology" :

Keep Smokin' !