New guy, 1st smoker build

[Tom_Heath]

Looking good

[bluecatfish]

[Rodcrafter]

Heck yeah, you don't mind doing it the hard way. Nice work and very compact.


Making memories.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Getting close. Didn't light a fire in it today, but I'm pretty close to doing so. Just have to finish up the right side table, figure out how I'm going to hang the 2nd cooking tray, and I'm also building a diverter for the smoke stack.

Left side table is on and finished. It might not look stout, but I put my 250 pounds on it and it held me up just fine.


And the 2nd cooking tray.

[Rodcrafter]

Nice


Making memories.

[Big T]

[The Czar]

Very very interesting....

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well it's about time to go get some wood, and fire her up. Got it all finished up tonight except for cleaning and painting which will happen after the 1st fire is lit in it to burn off any residue on it.

It's hard to make out, but you can see my diverter in the upper right to redirect the smoke out to the side. Had to add this on after I did some checking and seen where the smoke would be hitting under the back porch.


And the 2nd cooking rack installed. Got it setup so it can be removed fairly easily, and tilted up while cooking to access the meats on the lower rack easier.

[Rodcrafter]

You do some nice work, and don't mind blazing new trails. Good job


Making memories.

[Pennywise]

Nice! How do you prop the upper rack? I mean when you tilt it....is it by hand or have you fabbed a kick stand?

[bluecatfish]

Great job! I know you are anxious to fire it up and check the temps.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Nice! How do you prop the upper rack? I mean when you tilt it....is it by hand or have you fabbed a kick stand?

For now I'm just going to use a prop rod I have. Now I gotta go out and split some wood, my nephews decided to help themselves to my pile of split wood for a bonfire.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Got a chance today to pop her cherry, and lit the 1st fire in her. It sure takes alot more wood than I thought it would to get it hot, but I could get it up to 300 on my temp gauge with the water pan about half full. Unfortunately my temp gauge must be reading way low though(more on that later).

1st fire lit in her.


Decided to put the 1st coat of paint down on it while she was burning in.


And I couldn't resist the urge to cook something on it. Found a pack of chicken breasts in the deep freezer, promptly thawed em out and slapped em on her.


Sure is a pretty glow coming out of the firebox at night.


Still have a few things to finish up on her, but all and all pretty happy. 1st order of business is a GOOD thermometer. I was cooking the breasts around 225-250 on it, but they cooked in under an hour and half and were over done in that time. 2nd is I need to add a heat deflector inside just above the halfway mark because I found a cold spot in the cooker. When I put the breasts in, I put one in each corner of the cookign area, and judged how they were cooking to jusge the temp. The lower left side cooked quite a bit slower with less smoke than the other 3 zones did. Hopefully a deflector will take care of this. 3rd, going to add a post on the side of it to hold a crescent wrench for taking the water fill plug out with, and removing the water drain plug. 4th going to add a tube to hold the wooden prop rod I made for the 2nd shelf. And lastly put another coat of paint on it.

[Pete Mazz]

Do you have gasket material on the CC door? Looks like a lot of smoke coming from it.

[bbroper]

Is there a downside to painting the smoker while it is hot?

[THEFERMANATOR]

Do you have gasket material on the CC door? Looks like a lot of smoke coming from it.

Nothing right now. The door fits really tight when it's cold, but it bowed out quite a bit when it got hot so I'm going to have to do something about it.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well, I got her finished out and going to try her out for awhile before I make anymore changes. My thermometer is supposed to be in Monday, but other than that all I didn't do was add the baffle. I decided to hold off on that and I'm going to try adding on an extension to the chimney to bring it down furthur first and see what that does. I'll make it adjusteable so I can move it to allow all of the smoke to go in through the bottom, or part through the bottom and part through the joint. I also added in some toggle clamps to hold the center of the lid down because it was bowing out when hot, added on a hanger for my crescent wrench, and put a piece of tubing in to hold my prop rod for the 2nd shelf.

I did run into a problem with it today though. The 1st time I lit it off it took me over an hour to get it up to 300, and today it took me forever to get it up over 200. As soon as I opened the lid the firebox lit off(I could hear it flame up), and it got HOT in a hurry. So I took my mailbox off the top of the chimney to direct the smoke out, and she went to blazing. So I found an old section of 6" furnace vent pipe with an adjusteable 90 on it, and screwed it to my roof for now to get me by. I got 3 slabs of ribs, and 10 pounds of leg quarters on her now, so I had to come up with a quick fix. She's holding a nice 200-225 now with the vent barely cracked open.

[Big T]

It takes a little time to figure out what they like and what they don't but once you figure them out you can make some awesome Q !!

[THEFERMANATOR]

I can't believe the difference taking that mailbox looking elbow off and going to the heater duct made. It now can hold any reasoneable temp no problem, heats up pretty quickly, and uses ALOT less wood. I used probably half the wood today VS what I did Wednesday, and held better more consistent temps. I didn't have to pack the firebox this time and keep the vent full open. I was cursing it thinking I needed a bigger chimney pipe for it, but it ended up being my own fault. Live and learn.

My impressions with cooking on it for the 1st real cook is it is an AWESOME cooker. It would have taken me 4-5 hours to cook ribs until they were done in my old BRINKMAN, but 2.5 hours in this one and they were already getting tender. I used VERY little wood after I fixxed the chimney problem, but I do have to remember to add another chunk every 30-45 minutes to keep the smoke going uniform(this is probably more to do with my wood not being really dry yet. It's 4 years old, and still damp after I cut it up). The water pan not being in direct contact with the heat worked out nicely. Even after 3.5 hours it still had a good deal of water left in the pan, but it stayed very humid inside the smoker. Only downside to this design isn't a deal breaker, but it does make it a bit uncomfortable. Having the firebox underneath the cooker sure helps to re-use the heat and keep it compact, but it does make it warm on my right leg when I go into the smoker. Alot of heat radiates off of the door when you have a good fire going in it. But all in all I'm VERY happy with my smoker, and like my unique design. Time to do some hams for Christmas.

Tonights grub.

[Big T]

don't forget to send out samples

[mazdaparts]

Looks like it works pretty good. If you need any help eating anything just post your address, time it will be ready and what you are cooking.

[Tom_Heath]

Sounds like you are real close to right!! Is the fb hot to the point where you need to insulate it?

[Rodcrafter]

So with that much fire going what temps were you using? You sure have a different design that is for sure. I like creativity, especially when it works great.


Making memories.

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

[THEFERMANATOR]

Insulating the firebox would be nice, but not required. I had loaded way to much wood into it trying to get it hot when the chimney was blocked off with my cover. After I fixxed that I only threw on 3 more small chunks just to keep some smoke going. It kept burning close to 200 for another 3 hours. I just got my new thermometer installed, so hopefully I can get a better idea of what the temps actually are. The one I was using was a cheapy out of an old wal-mart grill I had to scavenge from, and I'm pretty sure it was way off. I know on my grill it never went over 400, even with all 4 burners blazing. Just need to get the hang of what it likes and what it doesn't. Cooking on a smoker like this is night and day different than anything I have ever used. My last smoker was just a cheap brinkman cabinet from wal-mart that I bought 8 years ago, and before that was a basic 120 gallon galvanized water tank split in half that you built the fire in one end of, and cooked on the other end. So far I am very impressed with the flavor of the reverse flow smoker, and how it cooks.