New Stickburner

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still learnin

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 4, 2014
9
10
Hello all. Picks up a Greasy Hills 401 the other day. Went with it because I can't afford the more expensive large smokers!
Cooked on it Sunday and had a heck of a time keeping the temp up and steady. It was easy to get to 300, but dang if it didn't drop quickly and constantly. I'm not sure how much wood I burned through but it was a lot. And a 20lb bag of lump charcoal. That was for about 10 hours of trying to stay close to 300.
I noticed a ton of smoke rolling out one side of the cooking chambers door. So today I used high temp silicone in hopes to stop that. Time will tell.
I'm all going to use briquets next time and line the firebox with unlit ones in hopes that they'll slowly work around and all light. With the occasional split thrown in.
Any other suggestions?
 
That was the original plan but I couldn't keep the heat up. Without charcoal I would've been adding wood every 15-20 minutes and hardly ever have the good blue/clear smoke.
 
is this a new one?

I know on some of the older models they needed mods as the exhaust was too small and also the firebox needed work
 
Brand new. I'd read about some older ones but the firebox seems big enough, 30X20. I couldn't tell you the measurements of the chimney right now though.

 
That was the original plan but I couldn't keep the heat up. Without charcoal I would've been adding wood every 15-20 minutes and hardly ever have the good blue/clear smoke.
That's what I do, whats wrong with that? How big are your splits?
 
Brand new. I'd read about some older ones but the firebox seems big enough, 30X20. I couldn't tell you the measurements of the chimney right now though.

Try a basket to have a more contained fire and you can move the basket close or further to the cooking chamber inlet to control it better.


Hard to tell but from your pic it looks like you are getting little draw.

 The pic below is with my door wide open, it has good draw and is not backing up.

 
Post a pic of your stack.

a basket might work, but it might work against you too if its restricting air flow

I would wait on that. Also trying pushing the fire back towards the back wall of the firebox

what do the intake vents look like?
 
I'll post a pic of the stack when I get home. Or try to find some on the internet.

I'd prefer to use mostly or all wood, and that's what I set out to do. My splits were self split, but I generally tried to keep them about 3-4 inches in diameter and 1 1/2 feet long or close to it.
 
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