Modifying My Brinkman

ga pine needle · Dec 8, 2009

After my inital smoke I realized the fire box had to be enhanched! I followed the info available from the members who are so gracious to share and I now have a smoker that responds quickly to air flow adjustments and burns oh so much more efficient! (I already had the exhaust lowered)

Only tools required!

Two pieces of 1" angle, cut to 12" legnth expanded metal 13ga and a piece of 16 ga sheet metal.

The 12" pieces of angle raised my fire grate up to a perfect height!

Thought about this,,,

But I decided on this.

Burns GREAT!

I smoked Pork Loin, Bologna, Bacon, Sweet Potatoes, ABT's and Dutch's beans Q View will be posted in the"PorK" section.

pineywoods · Dec 8, 2009

Great job on the mods and food looks awesome

ga pine needle · Dec 8, 2009

Thanks piney!

raceyb · Dec 8, 2009

The firebox mod looks professional and well done in my own opinion. I also like your Qview.

k5yac · Dec 8, 2009

There ya go! Those mods look great! I performed similar mods to mine a while back and they turned my mediocre pit into a reliable and predictable smoking machine.

Hope you enjoy it!

chefrob · Dec 8, 2009

nice handywork!

beer-b-q · Dec 8, 2009

The Food Looks Great...

Congratulations on the modifications...

mballi3011 · Dec 8, 2009

Great job on your mods and the food looks awesome too.

fire it up · Dec 8, 2009

The level of the charcoal grate it comes with is absurdly low, that was the first mod I had to have done to my sNp because I was tired of scraping out ashes 3-4 times during a long smoke.
Saw the other post with the food, everything looked great!
Love Dutch's beans and I don't like baked beans at all but his, can't get enough of them!

thadoc · Dec 8, 2009

Great job on the mods, I have the exact same smoker, I too found that the fire pit grate was way too low and did the mod to raise it up! I am now working on the mod for the inside of the cooking chamber! Do you think if you notched out the metal tray that is on the bottom of the adjustable grate and slide it over the fire pit hole that it would work just as good? I want to be able to keep that adjustable grate so I can put my water pan on it. I was also going to line the bottom of the cooking chamber with fire bricks so the heat would be fairly even across the cooking chamber. Let me know what you think! Thanks! keep up the good mods and great Q-views.

rivet · Dec 9, 2009

Hey great job on your firebox mod! Well done. We all appreciate new techniques for SnP improvements!

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thanks for the kind words!
I don't know about notching out the adjustable grate and using it as a tuning plate, I don't think it's wide enough to cover the inlet from the fire box and be very effective. I was very pleased with how even mine cooked with that one plate over the fire box hole. It is a pretty inexpensive mod, I picked up a piece of 8" x 24" 16 ga at Tractor Supply for 8 or 9 bucks, cut it to a legnth of 15 1/2" and it worked perfect. Based on my one smoke results I would suggest giving this a try, I loaded it pretty heavy and I had outside temps around 38* for the entire day. Let us know what you do and what your results are.

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

I agree completely, it's hard to understand why Brinkman would allow such a issue to exist. But then I don't ever plan to cook in the fire box and I guess the market the thing with that option, it might even cook well in there but for my use it's a fire box.

Yep, them Dutch's beans are some kind of fine!

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thanks Rivet! The mods that people come up with are both fun to do and rewarding.

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thanks Raceb!

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thanks K5YAC! I am very impressed with the effect of such simple mods.

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thank you Chef!

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thanks! The food turned out great. I'm very pleased with the mods.

ga pine needle · Dec 11, 2009

Thank you very much! Any pics of your Makers Mark?

billbo · Dec 11, 2009

Hey Needle, question for you. With the angle iron in the firebox. Did you weld that in? If not how did you get it to stay put?

Modifying My Brinkman

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