Little Chief Question??

[rhino70]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone knows if the elements from the big chief will fit in the little chief?? I am going to be buying or making a bigger smoker in the next few months, and I was thinking of taking this up to the lake to have up there. I think it would be a much more effective sausage maker and fish smoker for the lake if i had a little more juice and a temperature controller. Does anyone know about this?? Any help you could give would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[tfries]

I modified my Little Chief with a Big Chief element. It helped out quite a bit, but was only really to achieve about 195 with it. It was good for ribs, salmon and other smaller items, but I usually had to finish off butts and briskets in the oven. I worked with it that way for about 5 years before it finally died last month.

 

[tasunkawitko]

i would think that putting a big chief element in the little chief would boost temps a bit as described above, and don't see much problem with that, especially in northern colder climates. keep in mind that the chief smokers are designed for cool smoking such as jerky, fish, sausage, cheese etc. and also for smoke flavoring of larger cuts, not for smoke cooking of larger cuts.

 

[larry maddock]

tfries-
what did temp go to with lil chief element???

 

[rhino70]

thanks for the info. I really appreciate your responses.

The temperature gets up to about a max of 160 in warm weather with no insulation. I made an insulator wrap out of some material called reflectix, and i can get it up to about 180 with that. The problem is that in the cold minnesota weather, i can only hold about 100 degress even with my insulator. I smoked some summer sausage last weekend, and I had to wrap the smoker with the insulator with another big packing blanket and a braided rug. and it took forever to get up to 150. I would still use the little chief to smoke sausage, jerky, snack sticks and fish, never anything bigger, but i'd just like a little more oomph for the winter months.

Also, I am planing on building my own large smoker soon, and i think i'm going to get a PID temp controller, so i could use that with the little chief in the summer to keep the temps down.

Again, thanks for your help everyone

 

[smoking snow]

My big Cheif is on right now with a salmon in it. It's at 85 and has bin for 12 hours now cold smoke. I could take some pics of the element if you like it is a 450 watt its -15c here thats why it's only at 85 nice temp for cold smoking.

 

[tasunkawitko]

smoking_snow - that's perfect weather for smoking cheese!

 

[rhino70]

I was thinking the same thing. :)

Thanks for the info smoking_snow. and yes, let me see what kind of element you have when you get a minute. After the salmon smoke of course. :) Thanks again for your help.