First Afterburner Smoke

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ddave

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
Mar 3, 2008
1,843
31
Far Northern California
Finally got to smoke with the Afterburner. Did some country style ribs, a shredded potato, cheese and egg stuffed fatty, and my first ABTs. Didn't get any shots of the prep but here is the smoker loaded up and ready to go.



The ABTs came off first. I only made eight as I thought my wife would only eat one and my son and I would eat the rest.



As it turned out, my wife didn't want any (she can't do jalepenos) and they were a little too hot for my son. He ate a couple then started stripping out the filling and left the peppers. I ate his leftover peppers and the rest of the whole ones. MAN those things are good. Noe I see what all the excitement is about.

Here is a shot of the fatty after it came off.



Capt Dan is a genius by the way. I used his "Zip Loc bag" method of rolling the sausage out and then rolling it up. That info should be a "sticky" in the new fatty section. It works great!!
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Here is a shot of the fatty sliced.



I smoked the country style ribs to 175 spritzing with apple juice and Lord Calvert, then covered with foil in a foil pan to 185. They were pretty tender and juicy but could have been a tad more tender.



Temp control with the Afterburner was a breeze. All in all a very enjoyable smoke. Will have to make many more ABTs the next time we have friends over for a Q party, that's for sure.

Dave
 
great job, I'm doing a smoke tomorrow and love stopping by SMF to get into the spirit
 
Congrats on a great smoke, and thanks for the Q View!
 
I knew you'd like it. I thought it was like night and day between smoking with charcoal and then putting in the afterburner. I know some guys say I'm cheating but I've had a lot more time to smoke now that I dont have to babysit. And it still tastes pretty dang good.

I dont know about you but I'm happy I bought mine.
 
Looks great nice job
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Any pics of the Afterburner in action? I'm thinking to making on and I was wondering how they worked before getting the parts.
Was it easy to keep it at 225-250?
did you crank it up to see if you could hit 300 for yard bird?

Thanks..
 
I don't have any pictures of it working. There are some really good ones on their website. It was very easy to keep temps between 225 and 250. In testing I took it up to 300 to check for chicken. It hit 300 with no problem. There was LOTS of regulator turn left. I have no doubt that it could get to 350 or higher if I wanted it to.

Dave
 
Here is some pics of mine:

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Overall View of the smokebox.

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Inside the smokebox.

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With the tinderbox.

I modified mine, I tried the large juice can and didnt like it. I found this old roaster pan and it works great. I can use the lid like I'm doing here to snuff out any flames that come off the wood.

Also, I had mine upto 400 and probably could have gone higher.
 
I couldn't agree more. I love it!! The "fun" of tending the fire sort of wore out pretty fast. Although the last time I did it, it wasn't as bad as my first few smokes. If I could find some decent lump, I might try charcoal again -- but I don't think that will be for a LONG time.

I read on their website where it topped out at 460 on a horizontal. Mine sits kind of high and I was worried about getting the firebox lid too hot. I know why they named it "Afterburner". That thing really rumbles when you crank it up.

Dave
 
Some of the jalapenos around here lately have been a bit hotter than years past. I don't mind (in fact I like it that way), but I think the wife got used to the mild jalepenos. Weird how they've changed this year.
 
A gardener friend told me that when your growing Jalapenos, the amount of watering you do will determine how hot they will become. If you water them a lot while they are growing, they are suppose to be hotter. If this theory is correct, then if the jalapenos are grown during a wet year, then they should be hotter.
 
DrowzyDave
Great lookinf smoke you did there. Glad you enjoyed the ABT's, now for future smokes it sounds like you may get to eat a majority of them !!!

To All
Afeterburner - I haven't had as near as much time as I would like in the recent past to visit SMF near as much as I would like to and the afterburner caught my attention. How much are you guys spending on these? I was checking out the Backwoods afterburner a while back (back when I had time in my life), but they were on the spendy side for me. I am very curious as to what you guys are using.....
 
Mossy,

The Afterburner H is around $85.00 with shipping and worth every penny in my opinion. What is also nice is that you can take it out in a couple of miniutes and do a charcoal smoke if you want.

Here is the website.

http://www.gassmoker.com/

The customer service is awesome!

Dave
 
I bought a turkey deep fryer at a garage sale for $5. Paid $20 for a new hose and regulator. Made a few mods and it works great for those times when I can't babysit the fire.
 
Great to see a review on the Afterburners - it may be something in our purchasing future.

Ditto on customer service, I've bought a few kinds of smoking wood from Ed and wouldn't hesitate to buy from him again .
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I've heard of a few people doing that also, but have read that typically turkey fryers are designed to operate with generally more flow than is required to keep a smoker at 225 - 250. Some people have experienced difficulty keeping them lit whiile trying to keep the temps at the lower end of the scale with a fairly efficent (heatwise) smoker. Probably not a problem with a horizonal offset!
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I don't know enough about propane burners and the like to fab one so I just "bought someone else's wheel" instead of reinventing one.

Whatever gets your food cooked the way you like it is the way to go near as I can tell, and if you can make one on your own, and save some money -- I'm all for that!
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Dave
 
Drowzy things are looking good. My last ABT were so hot i don't see myseelf doing any more.
 
I liked them but no one else really did. I think I will do some with milder peppers in a attempt to appeal to more of the family.
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Dave
 
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