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I fired up the smoker last night and plugged it with a whole pork shoulder. I lit coals and placed in fire chamber and got the smoke chamber up to temp with a combo of coals and wood. I have a lot of smoke seepage around the fb door and the smoke box door. I know I am close to having this thing work right but nobody here in Paraguay can help, they have never seen anything like this. I have been trying to buy a gasket for both doors but there arent any here!!!
Anybody here on the forum got a bunch of frequent flyer miles? I could use a visit ...on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best...the shoulder came out a 6.5. Good smoke flavor but only slight red around outer edge. Pictures later today. I swear this is a smokers paradise and BBQ heaven IF I can just get it right, These people eat meat 8 days a week.
Bigger exhaust on the smoker... Maybe cut back on air into the smoker..... It's almost impossible to help not knowing everything about the smoker including pictures while it is operation... That elbow is a serious problem when it comes to air flow....
Can you get High temp silicone ? you can use it to seal around you cook chamber door. I know you are running about 40 feet of stack, is the exhaust fan doing the job ?
I did use the HTS both inside the smoke chamber opening and outside the opening...the problem is the sub-par construction. I think the best bet is to cut a peice of wood just smaller than the opening, put it on hinges and wrap the edge of wood with pre-fab seal made for high temp. The difficulty is that I have to go to Formosa,Argentina or buy online and drop ship down here. These are the times that try to trap my smoking soul.
can someone direct me to a tutorial that has a step by step for bringing big chamber 2 meter sq.) up to temp and maintaining the temp on offset smoker?
Am I doing it correctly using coals only to bring it up to temp? I have been told to have a small hot fire, but that is a big space to heat up. I have way too much smoke.
I forgot about this beast! Have you got it working better?
For startup I would start a fire or coals IN the cook chamber then move/ sweep the coals into the firebox and maintain temp.
The suggestions here are good. Like Dave's let the smoker run and exhaust it I to a plenum and use your power fan to remove the smoke to the top of your building
Ok...I am finally getting around to a follow up with the fórum...so here it is... the good, the bad and the ugly...
The smoker works...and the Paraguayan people are crazy for the BBQ...I fired up the smoker to cook two whole pork legs for an event called Guarara...this is a monthy event where people pay $10 to enter and get to sample about 20 to 25 different cooks...
I am broke and waiting on a bailout so while I suffer I am working on a mobile smoker... also included is some eye candy from the Guarara smoke..
pork leg about halfway through the 14 hour smoke...
the event was a tremendous shot in the arm because I got to see, first hand,