question about my char griller

[razman]

i have the char griller pro with the sfb. i've been smoking meats for about a month now, and have had a great deal of success.....until last night. i haven't done any mods on my smoker whatsoever at this point. the grate for the coals in the sfb has large openings, and last night i had alot of trouble keeping the heat up because the smaller chunks of coal would fall through and started building up early on, which prevented alot of air flow through the coals. i have heard of some people modifying that grate by putting a smaller pattern (kinda diamond shaped) grate over the top of the original grate. would this help my problem, what do i use and where would i find something like that? thanks for any advice......rick

 

[coyote-1]

Home Depot or Lowes, sheet metal section. The stuff is called "expanded steel" or something. You can simply put a layer of it over your existing grate - or you can check the offset/Smokin'Pro modification threads, where some users have made containers for the coals out of that expanded steel.

 

[dradclif]

razman, I've been enjoying what comes off my char griller with the sfb for several years. Personally, I've never worried about the smaller coals falling through the grate, the cross pieces are only about 1/2 inch apart. I add more coals every hour or so anyway to keep a consistant cooking temp. I also use a lot of chunk hardwood, in combination with coal... for the smoke, (rather than soaked chips) and heat.

I actually believe if you put a metal sheet with smaller guage holes, over the existing grate, you'll find that the ash will build up on that plate, rather than falling through the grate. I think this would be worse for your coals to set on, than letting the small pieces fall through to the bottom. I believe because of the location of the vent holes in the sfb (half above, and half below) the grate, and the location of the opening into the grill itself, (several inches above the grate) that even a moderate build up of ash, or smaller coals below the grate will not affect the performance, or ability to maintain proper heat. My grate - after so many years of heat, is actually dipped in the middle, leaving my charcoal and wood barely an inch above the bottom of the sfb, and it's still never a problem.

But... that's just my opinion based on my own experience with it... I'm sure you'll get many years of satisfaction out of it.

Dave
_________________
30" Char Griller Professional w/sfb
32" Stainless Steel Natural Gas Grand Hall w/rotisserie
37" Dual Chamber/ Front loading Brinkmann Professional
40" Stainless Steel Masterbuilt Electric Smokehouse

 

[lostarrow]

my chargriller/sfb is about 10 years old.The original sfb charcoal grate finally burned through. I now use a charbroil shaker basket (from lowes @ 13.99) placed on top of the previous sfb cooking grate.The cooking grate I trimed with a hacksaw to sit about 3 in. from the bottom of the sfb floor.To help protect my sfb floor i place a disposable cooking pan under the grate to collect the ashes.It works well prevents ash buildup on long smokes and if iI had started at first I would not have rusted out the wall between my body & sfb



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[razman]

well, i never had a problem getting the temps up and keeping them up until last night......one thing that was different last night was this: i used briquets to get the fire started (usually i only use lump, but i didn't have alot of it on hand) maybe i made the pile too dense to begin with, and it couldn't vent properly?? after about an hour of fighting it, it eventually came up to about 250degrees and stayed there for the rest of the cook. i dunno?