That being said, bear in mind ...my limited experience with cooking and operating a smoker. Also bear in mind I read constantly about what they are supposed to do in ideal situations and the results they are supposed to achieve.
PLEASE DONT THINK I AM BEING A POMPOUS JERK....I am really humbled by the success I have had with Franks plans. I almost feel I can even exceed a few of the pros I watch and admire on the tv shows. Or at least, let them use my smoker..( ok, stop laughing...I'm only trying to say the things have gone ridiculously well so far).Any way, the short of it all is that I believe my original trailer mounted tank smoker is the absolute best in temperature control, fuel consumption and quality food output. It follows all the rules to a "T" from everything I have learned and read. IT IS GREAT EQUIPMENT. So,
The weather today was very windy with gusts around 45 mph. Temp was 39 when I lit the match on the chimney. I filled the chute with about 3 chimneys of lump charcoal at 10am, one was lit the other two just as a scoop. It took about 7-8 minutes to see the first puffs of smoke to pass through the stack. I'd almost thought the fire had gone out so I took my MAPP gas touch and supplemented the flame. Temperatures only started to climb inside the box after about 10 minutes and hit 70 around 10:39am.
I cracked open the cleanup door about 1/2" to get more air to the coals. It was when the maverick thermometer started beeping that I realized I had forgotten to close the door and the internal box temp was around 360.this took over 45 minutes from start time.
Since I had no ball valve yet, I closed the 2" opening by sliding a splitting wedge inside the 2" hole to block air flow. After getting the temp inside the box to smoking temps I spent a bit more time measuring skin temperatures.
The smoker skins were only 53 degrees everywhere except the top 3-5 inches above the clean out door. They peaked at about 200 but 3 inches above the seal, temperatures dropped about 35 degrees and 6 inches above the seal dropped another 40 degrees to about 130. The condensation on the top inside of the fuel loading door puzzled me as it was excessive. It could be from the rain yesterday as it was left outside UN covered.
As of now the smoker is still at 244 degrees, the chute was filled only 1/3 of the way up and we are within 2 minutes of 6 hours since startup. If my tank is great equipment, this is perfect !!!
I am so extremely pleased with the way it is performing. The temperature is so much more stable in that large swings of heat do not occur unless you open the door. At that point I would lose 15-20 degrees in 4-6 seconds but it recovers well. I don't think the temperature dropped from 244 by more than 3-4 degrees the entire 5 hours of operation. There is a very very light trace of ash inside the floor under the transfer tube.
- Door cracked open
- Fuel door opened after about 30 minutes
- Oak chunks in the ash clean out
- Temp control
