Old Country BBQ Pits All-American Angus Smoker

Following, I've been interested in this one for a while

I've had this cooker for about 4 years now and was actually searching for some thoughts/advice on optimizing it. It's the second cooker I've owned, the first being a charbroil silver smoker I bought in '07 when I got the bbq itch. I'll just put down my experiences with it.

1. I use A LOT of wood during a cook. Like a 20lb bag of lump charcoal and 2-3 bags of the bbq mini logs from academy.
2. I haven't been able to get a consistent temp from one end of the chamber to the other. By consistent, I mean anything close to 25 degrees. The best I've been able to do was about 50-75 from one end to the other.
3. I've also had trouble maintaining constant temps for any period of time. Lot of work babysitting the fire.
4. This may seem obvious, but the firebox gets SUPER hot. Seemingly way hotter than I think it should. I can't open the door or adjust the dampers without wearing gloves.
5. I haven't found the vertical chamber to be useful for anything other than cooking sausage or salmon. I mostly use it as a warming drawer.

I've been able to turn out some good food (at least according the friends & family we have over eat), but it's a lot of work.

For me, I'd like some advice from more experienced folks on the temp issues. Any way to insulate the firebox? Would tuning plates be useful for something this big?

I've also been thinking about using the barrel as the firebox and cooking in the vertical chamber? Good idea/bad idea?

I just ordered the bigger 20" All American BBQ Smoker direct from Old Country a few days ago. I'm psyched to get it. I've been using a Char-griller for about 10 years and I wanted something bigger . I did get the tuning plates which i hope will make the vertical section useful for cooler smokes. I have high hopes this will be a pleasure. I actually enjoy the activity of maintaining the temp but I'm hoping that this will hole the temp a little bit better than the Char-griller. I'll let you know how it goes.

I just looked at one of these to see how the vertical chamber was built. My opinion from what I can see is the opening between the vertical and horizontal cook chambers is way too big. Its a big rectangle cut out at the bottom of the vertical. One modification I would make would be to close it off to half the size it is. I think the vertical is pulling way too much heat from the horizontal and its going right out the 2 big stacks on top. Also try closing off one stack on the vertical and see how it runs. I didn't look at FB to see how it is designed so I cant help there. Maybe add an upper air vent on the FB door like Dave had pics of in my new thread.

I agree with you, completely about that hole. Before I seasoned it I had a welder close up half of that hole. So I'm hoping to get a decent amount of smoke on that bottom rack in the vertical chamber.