Masterbuilt charcoal barrel smoker

Too bad they had it on sale beginning of the month (July) for $149.00, I picked one up.  I am happy with it.  Only done a few mods so far, charcoal basket, flipping charcoal pan in main chamber (which helped keep the variance of temp between the hot and cold side with in 10 degrees of each other.), made a charcoal ash tray (which sits under the grate which I raised up so I can pull the ash tray out to remove the ash) for the firebox since the firebox is one piece and only access to the ashes is through a side access door (IMO my biggest complaint was that the ash removal during the cook is too much of a pain bc of the one piece design of the firebox) and added a baffle in the main chamber. 

Next up for me is going to be getting the chimney down to the grate.

Overall I am happy with it as it is versatile that you can smoke or grill with it.  I bought because I wanted more cooking area as I was previously on a 18.5" Weber and a little smokey joe.  So it has a lot more space and can feed the entire family with just the one fire, instead of having to start up both grills just to cook everything in a reasonable amount of time.

Have only smoked a fatty and a few racks of ribs.  The ribs are the wife's favorite and she liked them so mission accomplished there.  Used the 3-2-1 method which I read about on the forum.  Just kept feeding the fire and was able to hold temperature at about 230 to 240 the entire time smoking the ribs.  Everything else has just been grilling dogs, burgers and some chicken for the kiddies.

Hope that is helpful and if you have any other specific questions about it let me know.

So first thing I did was drill 4 holes in front and back of the fire box and use stainless steel hardware to give me something to rest the charcoal grate that came with the firebox.  Then I took a piece of 18ga steel sheet metal bought at Home Depot and formed by hand to the shape of the bottom of the fire box, making sure it would fit through the opening for the access door.  

So the Charcoal basket sits on top of the raised up grate and the ash pan sits underneath.  The basket is just one made of expanded metal like everyone on this board has.  Do a search for expanded metal charcoal basket and you will find a bunch of posts.

If I have time after work tonight I will try take some pics and post them so you can see the mods.  Don't get your hopes up, I am no pro, just another guy hacking stuff up to make it work better.

Good luck!