Hi having trouble maintaining temp in my char-broil offset smoker

Welcome to SMF!  You'll find the answers to all your questions here. The best way would be going to the charcoal smoker sub-forum (go to Forums) and scroll down till ya find it. Scroll through there for anything related to offset smokers. There's quite a variety of mods, some you'll choose to use, others not.

The biggest things to look at doing would be to use some dryer vent pipe (metal) to lower the chimney to near grate level; add a baffle in the cooking chamber to deflect heat/smoke further into the chamber; add tuning plates to further direct heat/smoke down the chamber; making a "box" out of expanded steel to hold charcoal in the firebox; and, use the minion method for the charcoal/lump coal. Also, mounting good quality thermometers at both ends of the smoking chamber will help you figure out the best combination of baffle/tuning plates. It sounds like a lot of work, and it can be. However, the results will bring you many, many compliments.

Not everything needs to be done at one time. For a budget, I would suggest the chimney extension (really cheap) and a makeshift baffle from a pizza pan or similar. The baffle might warp depending on temp, but mine is from 1/8" steel and works great.

Welcome to the SMF. Glad to have you here. Lots of good folks, great recipes and knowledge. Looking forward to your first qview.

 First off welcome to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are alot of really good folks that would just love to help you with anything to do with smoking. Now we like having new folks here to give a new prospective on some of the ways we do things around here. Now if you are really new then I would suggest that you sign up fir the 5-day E-course it free and it will give you the basics on smoking and a few recipes too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/list/127

then you will have a method to your newly found madness and believe me it will be a madness. Then when you start smoking things you will have to learn how to post the pictures / Qview 

here. So here's a link to a tutorial on how to post your Qview so we can see what your doing.

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/82034/how-to-post-qview-to-smf

Now the next thing you have to do is run out and get something to smoke. Then just smoke it and if you have any questions just post  them here and we will answer all your questions that you might have. Oh yea there's no stupid questions we were all there in the beginning and we just really like to help others enjoy the fabulous smoked foods that we do. So again

 

Welcome to Your New Addiction

Welcome crazyforsmoke. The other posts have given you some great ideas and information to help you on your way.

I have a couple of questions about your temp problem-

What kind of fuel are you using, wood, charcoal briquettes or lump charcoal?

How long does your cooker maintain your desired cooking temp?  

Air temp and wind speed and direction can also affect your temps.

A description of how the temps fluctuate and when will also be helpful.

I cook on a Char Griller offset, similar to yours.

Welcome to SMF CrazyforSmoke!! Seems like your headed in the right direction by signing up here and asking for help. You haev received some good info so far. If you could mention which Char Broil smoker you have it would be easier to tell you which mods can be done. Each smoker has its own characteristics and what might work good on one may do eth opposite on another. I hope you get the information your looking for.

return it or mod the hell out of it     but good to have here   here u will find what u need to do to it

I haven't done any mods on mine except I use a big foil pan for a water pan and put it completely to the left to buffer the heat.

The first time I used it I started with a fairly small fire and then it was hard to maintain it.  Now I start with a really big fire and it's easier to keep it going and maintain the temp by closing/opening the intake vent.  I use soaked wood chunks on the rack above the fire, maybe put them off to the edge if the fire's really hot and they'll burn without flaming up.  Also, with a big fire and the vent mostly closed they don't flame up as much either.