- May 19, 2017
- 99
- 56
So my fiance got me a smoker for my birthday recently along with the book "Project Smoke".
This is what she got: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Dyna-Glo-36-in-Vertical-Charcoal-Smoker-DGX780BDC-D/206289004
I'm pretty excited to learn how to smoke some meats, as I've always loved the smoked-barbecue flavor. As an utter newbie, I read the book cover to cover (ok so mostly I read the how-to parts and looked at the delicious pictures), and opened up my smoker, got it built and decided to do a dry-run to see if I could nail the temps. I have some Kingsford blue and some natural lump charcoal sitting around for my Webber kettle grill. Not sure if I should be using lump or briquette, but I heard lump burns cleaner so I decided to use the lump for my initial burn.
The book describes the "Minion Method" for burning charcoal in the smoker, and being a Minion enthusiast (I've seen the movies, what's not to like) I decided to go for it. I started with both bottom vents and the top vent wide open, filled the charcoal tray with about 4 lbs of charcoal, and added a couple hand fulls of lit coals on top of that. Very quickly I my temperature started to spike so I started throttling down the bottom vents. Within a half hour the temp guage on the smoker had spiked to its max, and the over thermometer I put on the grate was reading over 500 degrees.
Okay so I'm up into oven/grilling temps. Not the smoking range I want to be in. At this point, the bottom vents are completely shut, and I add a water pan to the bottom rack. I also noticed 2 things, 1) a pretty hefty smoke leak from around the doors, and 2) all of my charcoal appeared to be lit (so much for a low-slow burn). I'm assuming the smoke leak around the top door is also indicative of a pretty good air leak around the bottom door. Perhaps the source of my soaring temperatures and quick charcoal burn? I'll be addressing this soon. I may also have a leak around the thermometer, I'll test it for proper calibration before sealing with high temperature RTV.
This past weekend, I managed to keep the temps stable around 225 by placing about 12 coals in the charcoal tray, and then placing 5 or 6 lit coals on top, with maybe 1 or 2 wood chunks with the charcoal (and chips in the tray). This works well, but needs pretty constant tending (I'm not sure if this is normal or not). Every half-hour or so I was going out to check on it and either add chips or charcoal. Both bottom vents were barely cracked open, and temps started to drop around the 1 hour mark, when I was able to add 4 unlit briquettes and get the temp back up where I wanted it to be.
With those limited successes, I am determined to address my temperature stability issues. So I ordered a replacement gasket for the Big Green Egg. It comes in a roll, and happens to include more than enough length to border the doors on my smoker. So I ordered some off Amazon, scrubbed down the doors to remove oils and stuck it on. Doors seal up nice and tight now. Have to wait 24 hours it says before use, so maybe this weekend I'll try it out again!
I'm hoping to start stepping up into smoking more complicated and longer-smoke time items in the near future (ribs, pork shoulder, brisket etc), and long-term I'm aiming to smoke my Thanksgiving turkey this year.
This is what she got: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Dyna-Glo-36-in-Vertical-Charcoal-Smoker-DGX780BDC-D/206289004
I'm pretty excited to learn how to smoke some meats, as I've always loved the smoked-barbecue flavor. As an utter newbie, I read the book cover to cover (ok so mostly I read the how-to parts and looked at the delicious pictures), and opened up my smoker, got it built and decided to do a dry-run to see if I could nail the temps. I have some Kingsford blue and some natural lump charcoal sitting around for my Webber kettle grill. Not sure if I should be using lump or briquette, but I heard lump burns cleaner so I decided to use the lump for my initial burn.
The book describes the "Minion Method" for burning charcoal in the smoker, and being a Minion enthusiast (I've seen the movies, what's not to like) I decided to go for it. I started with both bottom vents and the top vent wide open, filled the charcoal tray with about 4 lbs of charcoal, and added a couple hand fulls of lit coals on top of that. Very quickly I my temperature started to spike so I started throttling down the bottom vents. Within a half hour the temp guage on the smoker had spiked to its max, and the over thermometer I put on the grate was reading over 500 degrees.
Okay so I'm up into oven/grilling temps. Not the smoking range I want to be in. At this point, the bottom vents are completely shut, and I add a water pan to the bottom rack. I also noticed 2 things, 1) a pretty hefty smoke leak from around the doors, and 2) all of my charcoal appeared to be lit (so much for a low-slow burn). I'm assuming the smoke leak around the top door is also indicative of a pretty good air leak around the bottom door. Perhaps the source of my soaring temperatures and quick charcoal burn? I'll be addressing this soon. I may also have a leak around the thermometer, I'll test it for proper calibration before sealing with high temperature RTV.
This past weekend, I managed to keep the temps stable around 225 by placing about 12 coals in the charcoal tray, and then placing 5 or 6 lit coals on top, with maybe 1 or 2 wood chunks with the charcoal (and chips in the tray). This works well, but needs pretty constant tending (I'm not sure if this is normal or not). Every half-hour or so I was going out to check on it and either add chips or charcoal. Both bottom vents were barely cracked open, and temps started to drop around the 1 hour mark, when I was able to add 4 unlit briquettes and get the temp back up where I wanted it to be.
With those limited successes, I am determined to address my temperature stability issues. So I ordered a replacement gasket for the Big Green Egg. It comes in a roll, and happens to include more than enough length to border the doors on my smoker. So I ordered some off Amazon, scrubbed down the doors to remove oils and stuck it on. Doors seal up nice and tight now. Have to wait 24 hours it says before use, so maybe this weekend I'll try it out again!
I'm hoping to start stepping up into smoking more complicated and longer-smoke time items in the near future (ribs, pork shoulder, brisket etc), and long-term I'm aiming to smoke my Thanksgiving turkey this year.