Brinkman SNP vs Pitmaster Deluxe? what's the dif?

[balikian]

A while back, when I was just smoking butts on my weber kettle, I was able to pick up a Brinkman Pitmaster Deluxe for a deal through where I worked for $70 - brand new, mind you. Now that I am looking into modding and reading through these forums, I keep seeing people refer to the Smoke n Pit. Someone was reviewing the Royal Oak and comparing it to the Charbroil and the SnP and referred to both of those smokers as having thin steel, but my Pitmaster is pretty thick. My buddy has the charbroils and the Pitmaster is quite a bit thicker and sturdier than those and was comparable to the Royal Oak I saw recently in Lowes. Looking at the Brinkman site, I see them refer to the Smoke n Pit Pitmaster Deluxe.

So, are the SnP and Pitmaster Deluxe the same smoker or different?

As a side question, while I've got a thread going, what is the general temp difference between firebox side and far side? I made some mods (Baffle and tuning plates) and burned in the metal and was getting a 40 degree diff. 280 was the firebox side and 240 was the far side. I'm gonna take the plates out and baffle out and see what it is without them. But I would like to get that temp difference closer to equal. I guess there is tweaking involved.

 

[rivet]

Essentially it is the same design with a few changes. From the info on the website and what pics I could find it looks to be the same quality steel.

Clicking on the pics at the website gives you the owners manual.

The differences of the deluxe vs the SnP from the owners manual that I downloaded are a slightly bigger firebox, different firebox damper design, a larger greasehole with a movable/rotateable cover and a larger area, and wooden worktable along the length of it, rather than the expanded metal one the SnP has.

The Deluxe does not have the adjustable charcoal pan in the smoking chamber to allow you to use it as a larger grill. The deluxe appears to have grates down there at the bottom which looks like a flawed design to me since then the hot coals and ash falling through the grates will rest against the smoking chambers underside body, which will lead to premature rusting. The SnP's adjustable charcoal "pan" that runs the length of the smoking chamber is a long rectangular grate installed with a metal pan underneath it to catch the hot ash and coals and prevent the above from happening.

Unless I were to see one in person, this is all I could tell different.

 

[ddave]

I beleive the Pitmaster Deluxe is heavier steel (judging from the price they sell them for) and is more like the older SnPs with a hinged lid that wasn't just a half barrel like the Walmart SnP.

I think it was designed to be more of a smoker where the SnP had the charcoal grate that you could use in the cook chamber if you wanted to grill in there as well.

As far as temp differences go, 40° seems like quite a bit. Check out this thread for some mods that I did to mine. You should be able to get the temps pretty even but bear in mind that absolutely even temps on an empty smoker will change when you throw a big hunk of meat on the grates.

Dave