This is my version of the perfect Char Griller with side fire box

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SWEET Mods

Only 1 question I could think of. 

When the grease drips down on the baffel are there drain holes along the sides of the baffel?

Or is it pitched so the grease will run towards the opening on the left, and then down to the catch can?
Good question. The baffel is sitting on a couple of rails that I added to the inside. I may have to cut some drain holes in them. I usually have a foil pan under the meat when I use my mes30. I have some chicken hind quarters on right now and I just put a foil pan on top of the baffel under the meat. It seems to be working fine. This thing is great. I filled it up with charcoal this morning at 10:00am to season it. I let it season for five hours playing with the temps the whole time, running it anywhere from up to 330  and down to 230 degrees. It is now going on six hours and the temp is at 230 on the original load of charcoal. I love it.
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Ok, at seven and a half hours of burn time I added about eight briquettes to the charcoal box because the temp dopped down to 217. It came back up to 235 in about ten to fifteen minutes. Still love it.
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Here is the chicken at two hours and forty five mins.

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Absolutely great. I now have more things to do to my Char-griller
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. If you do not mind can you point to the place on eBay that you bought the longhorn? Does it seal up the hole OK that the thermometer was in? I would also love a little more info on the angle iron and gasket mod.

 Again, you are the man!

Thanks,

Mark
 
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Absolutely great. I now have more things to do to my Char-griller
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. If you do not mind can you point to the place on eBay that you bought the longhorn? Does it seal up the hole OK that the thermometer was in? I would also love a little more info on the angle iron and gasket mod.

 Again, you are the man!

Thanks,

Mark
http://cgi.ebay.com/Cast-Iron-Longhorn-/330596095115?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf910148b  
Here is a link to the longhorn on ebay. 

There are a few of them listed, just do a search for cast iron longhorn.

I tried to heat and bend mine to match the curve of the lid ( I should know better than to to try and bend cast iron) and I broke it in half at the nose. So I just used a little JB weld and glued it back together with a curve in it. Used high temp engine paint  to paint it with. I used some high temp RTV silicon to seal up the hole.

The angle iron is just two pieces of half inch angle welded together and drilled and screwed to the main cooking chamber. The gasket is 5/8 inch stove gasket from ace hardware held in with high temp RTV silicon.

Here are some close up pictures. Hope this helps.
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sdh600, morning..........

Holy crap !!!!!!  That is the FIRST chevy biscayne  I have seen, turned into a corvette........Great job......I'm sure it will cook as great as the mods are.

Thank heavens the manufacturers do not make them right to begin with.......we'd have nothing to do....and nothing to post.........

Dave
 
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WOW! I may go back and rebuild the brinkman smokin pit after seeing this.  Great mods.

I am sure one of these fine folks can help get this made into a wiki/sticky do dah thingy.

Good looking unit and great looking yard bird.

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There is one thing I just noticed. The plastic handle on the latches for the firebox may melt.
Yep that thought had occurred to me but I thought I would try it. I Had a fire in it for about nine hours yesterday and the plastic handle is still there. But it does get a little soft when it is hot.
 
Yea I will probably have to add some kind of handle to the latch. I was just sitting here thinking of what I could replace the lid handles with that woud be unique. The ones that came with the smoker are really cheap.
 
Thanks for the link for the longhorn on eBay. I received mine today. I still need to paint and mount it.

How are your temps doing?

Thanks again,

Mark
 
Thanks for the link for the longhorn on eBay. I received mine today. I still need to paint and mount it.

How are your temps doing?

Thanks again,

Mark
Temps are running great. I did an 11 pound brisket and 2 racks of spare ribs  last Sunday and even with the  wind blowing moderately hard I had no problem maintaining 225 -250 degrees. I am really happy with how it works. Post a picture of yours when you get the longhorn on.
 
That's awesome that the temps were so stable... I did a pork butt this weekend and had to constantly babysit it for 7 hours... I am getting sick of babysitting my smoker, I think I'm gonna get one of these and mod it in a similar fashion. Did you have to keep adding fuel?
 
That's awesome that the temps were so stable... I did a pork butt this weekend and had to constantly babysit it for 7 hours... I am getting sick of babysitting my smoker, I think I'm gonna get one of these and mod it in a similar fashion. Did you have to keep adding fuel?


I fired it up at 3:00am, put  the brisket on at 4:00am. I pulled the foiled brisket at 3:00pm and let it rest in a cooler and pulled the ribs off the grill at 5:00pm. I added charcoal twice in that whole time. I am using the cheap sams choice charcoal from walmart. At 9:30 pm I looked and it was still 190 degrees in the smoker and lots of red coals in the fire box. That stuff burns a long time.
 
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