Saturday, March 31, 2007

Smoker Mods


When I first got my grill, I wanted to be able to grill, but I also wanted to take up smoking. My first couple of smokes were a little difficult, but with trial and error, I made a few modifications.



I found that I had a big gap around the lip. This allowed the heat to go up and out the sides without staying in the cooking chamber. So I found some heat resistant furnace sealer at Lowes. It looks like nylon rope. It worked great, but eventually the glue got brittle, so I bent some nails to use as clamps until I can figure out something more permanent. It still works pretty good. (All that white stuff is glue drippings.)



I found that by lowering the smokestack to the level of the grill, the heat was forced to fill the entire chamber, instead of just sweeping across the meat closest to the fire, and then up and out. The problem I had was that I have a warming rack attached to the lid that got in the way of anything that would have prodruded from the stack. So, to improvise, I found a 4 inch diameter aluminum ducting that would attach to the bottom of the stack, and then snake around the heating rack, and lower to just above the grill.






Oops! Sorry, gratuitous pic of wife's awesome cinnamon rolls.



The other problem I was trying to solve was a more even distribution of heat. It didn't seem to want to go over to the far side. So I turned my charcoal pan over, drilled holes all along it, and then tilted it. That way, it captures some of the heat coming out of the fire box, and distributes across the cooking chamber. The only problem I have now is that the heat is a little too evenly distributed. This can be a problem when I am trying to cook beef along with pork. Beef needs to heat up to a lower temp, and then cook at that lower temp in order to stay moist. I may turn the charcoal pan over for my next cook (I'm fixing up some beef roast along with several cuts of pork, and some ribs). I want to get the beef just right before I try an expensive and time-consuming brisket.



While I'm doing show and tell, I might as well show you the charcoal chimney I made out of an old coffee can and some wire. It took a while, and hurt the finger pretty good, but it was fun and works great! I've the wire sitting around for a long time, and got the coffee can from work, so it didn't cost me a dime.




OK, one more shameless shot of some good samoked ribs! Mmmm..mmmm...mmmmm.

3 comments:

Phae-Jae said...

B-u-r-p! Dat was good!

Ramona said...

Hey what's the coffee can for?

boy does it look good!

The Practicalist said...

Thank you, that is a pretty good looking coffee can, isn't it?

Actually, I use it to start up the charcoal.

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