My new toy
 

My gift to myself! Cooked the best ribs and boston butt yesterday. Great investment.

Nice. I can certainly appreciate a nice cooking pit. Congrats!!

Nothing finer than gifting yourself a new smoker!

Smoke fire meat. Yum!

Bought from Academy. $399. Any tricks to keeping temp steady? I fought with baffle on smoke box all day. Fluctuated from 200-300 degrees when I opened/closed the baffle. Someone told me to control temp by only using the smoke stack baffle?

I had one like that an converted it to an indirect smoker. Take a looks at smoked meets forum and you will learn a lot. I think Bob is a member over there also. Remember for ribs use the 3,2,1 method. It is almost fail safe if you keep your templates around 225 to 250. You can also ask for suggestions from bob on this. Learned a lot from him last year in grand isle. His beans are the bomb.


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eman is a beast in the kitchen, or pit. Dude don't play

Latt I have one and I start with a big fire and dampen it down to the temp I want. I use charcoal and logs. I open the fire box vent a little less than half way closed and use the stack dampener to control the heat.

Mine not the same or even close except it used wood and charcoal. But I put a single propane burner in it and a good regulator. Now I can regulate temp well. The damp gives me a jump of 30-40 deg. I set wood in water tray and it burns slow with no major temp jump. Unless I give it oxygen when I open door.

Can cook 5 whole chickens @ 400 f in an hour and a half. At 400 bird seals up and Jucy stays put.

Good luck they all cook diff. And run at diff temps. But a bit of time and slow additions of wood way smaller chunks than in pic and you got it.

I use masquit roots in 1/4 inch chunks and the roots I have are 3-4 inch dia. And 12 years old. I use very little at a time .

I recently got one that is identical just different brands, and i havent quite figured it out yet .. my fire is either too hot or not hot enough

Keep the exhaust fully open and control the heat w/ the intake vent. Go to smokingmeatsforum.com and do a search for SFB mods. (side fire box modifications).
The most important one is a charcoal basket to get the coals up a few inches off the bottom to allow more air flow under the coals and to allow the ash to fall away from the coals. . Also, most folks extend the smoke stack down to right at grate level.
Lots more help at SMF.com

Just looked at your pic. looks like an okie joe pit. These pit are not designed to burn sticks. (although a lot of folks mix charcoal w/ small chunks of wood). You can find a mod to seal the door at SMF too.
If you have a good sealed up smoker the heat control is easier as all the air flow is controlled by the intake damper.

the problem I'm havin is that when I first got it, I put the charcoal on the very bottom of the pit and it wasnt getting hot enough (not enough air flow underneath as you said above), but when I put the grills in the sit in the bottom to get your coals a few inches off the bottom, my fire gets way too hot and flares up really badly

I've tried to just put less coals and it helps with the heat getting too high, but it still flares up uncontrollably

Experience, and practice, took me quite a while to figure out. I have an older version, its an Okie Joe, I use nothing but Pecan, Hickory, and red oak, (black jack Oklahoma wood), and mesquite when I had access. Set the fire box and regulate with chimney flue. I would alway get a good fire and then use the coals then put a new log on when I thought the coals where going down. Again practice, practice and practice. It will cook very good steak on via indirect heat, but that needs very hot fire!!!!

I'm shopping pits myself now but looking at the pipe styles with the vertical smokers attached to the sides. I'm looking at the Old Country pipe smokers like the one I attached. Any reviews? 1/4" steel should help hold the heat and last a lifetime if the paint is kept up.

Shawn Give these smokers a look see before you buy.
http://langbbqsmokers.com/smoker_cookers.html

I really think I'd cook using the fire box grill more than the wider grill for the wife and I which is why I like the pipe fire box so you could close the grill while cooking. What are the cons to the Old Country's? I really could do without the vertical smoker. For the amount that I smoke, I could smoke on the larger grill but the wife loves smoked cheese and I feel like the vertical stack would smoke cheese better.

Card board box will smoke great cheese . Buy a smoker for the meat you want to cook.

X 2...

tin can , wood chips , 25 watt soldering iron and a cardboard box and i'll put my cheese against anyone's