Mystery water

[BoxcarBetts]

So I'm getting ready to prepare for today's cold smoke and I grab the water bowl and drip tray out of the smoker, which is where I store it. To my surprise, there was about 100 mL of water in the bowl. The inside of my smoker was dry, the inside of my shack was dry, and I'm pretty sure I didn't leave any water in the bowl. Not to mention my last smoke was like... 2 weeks ago almost?  My guess is it's condensation from some pretty drastic temperature and weather changes the past couple of days. The shack isn't insulated, so the temperature changes could easily get inside.  Then again, it was only in the bowl and not in the tray, so I don't think anything was running down the sides.

Any thoughts? Or is it as we say at work, "PFM" (pure f'ing magic)?

[NePaSmoKer]

I live in Florida with lots of humidity and never have water in the pan unless i left from a past smoke. And if your V-tray is holding water you must have a defective one with no vents or bottom hole  ;D

[KyNola]

I'm betting you left the water bowl with water in it after your last smoke.  I know I've made that error before.

[Tenpoint5]

Yep I'm gonna say there was Alcohol involved and or consumed during the last smoke. Thus resulting in a water pan replacement that was not logged in the memory banks

[BoxcarBetts]

I bet I know what I did... I bet after rinsing it to put it away, I just filled it up with water.

Maybe I'll find the lost remote in the freezer!  ;D

[tskeeter]

Boxcar, I've had that happen to me, too.  And I didn't leave water in the bowl.  I had rain blow into the vent pipe that goes up through the roof of my smoker shed.  The v-tray did a good job of making sure the water drained to the puck bowl sitting in the bottom of my smoker.

Note that I was using the cheapest vent cap I could find.  One of those that is roughly rectangular looking when viewed from the top and has four opening with no screening.  (Think a flat circle of metal which has been folded down at four points to attach to a round pipe.)  I haven't had the problem since I changed the vent cap to a circular cap with louvers around the perimeter and screening inside the cap.  It looks kind of like an oversized canned fruit can sitting on top of another can with a flat circular cap crimped on the top.

My thinking was that the louvers would do a better job of keeping wind blown rain out of the vent pipe than the large openings on my first cap.  And, any rain drops that got past the louvers would get caught in the screen and find their way to the bottom of the cap.  To allow any water collecting in the cap to run away before enough built up to drain down the vent pipe, I drilled a few weep holes in the recessed flange where the screening sits.

My smoker has been dry inside since I installed the louvered vent cap.