Crazy build ideas...dumb ideas?

[Black Titan]

Hello folks,

I mentioned in my intro thread that I've been using a char griller grand champ XD. I do like the smoker, but it has its faults. Had a hot spot on the right side, to the tune of 100 degrees higher than the left side. Tried several things - fire bricks in the fire box, moving the baffle plate angle, extending smoke stack, etc. I was able to get this down to a manageable 30 degrees I think if I remember correctly?

In an effort to further reduce the temp difference, I purchased the lavalock baffle plates. This has moved my hot spot to the left side of the cooker. With the lavalock water pan located where it's supposed to be, my temp difference shot back up. Removing the water pan brings the difference back down, but it's still not as close as I want it. To add to the confusion, probes placed in the middle of the grate on both ends of the cook chamber read drastically different than the gauges in the door at grate level. The door gauges are reading much higher, so it's like that lavalock plate is somehow forcing the gasses to the outsides of the grate.

Anyways, I'm not really trying to eliminate the hot spot per say, but I'm just trying to gain some of my cooking area back. Before the lavalock plate, I couldn't use the right 1/3rd of my cooking grate. Now I can't use the left 1/4th. I often cook quite a bit for larger family gatherings. I need more space. For father's day, I cooked 2 large butts, 6 racks of babyback ribs, and a chuck roast for burnt ends. I had to use a rib rack, and I didn't like the results. The racks were touching, the butts were touching, I didn't have even cooking temps on my ribs, etc.

I would love, LOVE, to have a Workhorse 1975t. I want to be able to take my smoker places, like when we do 4th of July at my uncles, camping down at the lake, etc, but it's just not in the budget.

So, to bring me to the point of my post, I've hatched a plan that may or may not potentially be stupid, and I don't know enough about smoker science, airflow and heat dynamics, etc to know for sure if it would work, but here it is. I do have some basic fab skills and can run a decent bead with a fluxcore mig, but I'm no welder or fabricator. Just a hobbyist.

1. Procure a small utility trailer, either used or one of those $400 Harbor Freight build-it-yourself trailers.

2. Procure a 2nd Grand Champ.

3. Procure some 3/16" or 1/4" sheet

4. Cut left side off my grand champ, and right side off new grand champ, and weld them together.

5. Weld this assembly to the trailer and build it up nice with some expanded steel to make wood racks and an area up front for a cooler.

6. Use sheet to fab a collector box for my smoke stack.

This would double my cooking capacity, and give me the room that I want, and make my rig transportable, all for less than $1k. Especially if I can find a used grand champ and trailer.

But I'm not sure if the firebox that comes on the grand champ would be up to the task of heating twice the cooking area. I'd love to have that giant insulated firebox off the Old Country Gen 2, but those things are $1900 and smaller cooking area than my grand champ.

Stupid idea? Do you think it would work?

BT

 

[Torch&Tone]

I love your ambition. I would expect that using your existing firebox and (roughly) doubling your area/volume is going to make your temperature control/fluctuations rather worse... but I love your ambition, regardless. And as long as you write down your results, it counts as science!

Johnny Cash: "One Piece at a Time"

 

[normanaj]

That is way beyond any ambition or thought that I could muster,that's why have an electric with PID...zero brain activity required!

Will absolutely be following this thread.

 

[Black Titan]

That is way beyond any ambition or thought that I could muster,that's why have an electric with PID...zero brain activity required!

Will absolutely be following this thread.

Lol I don't know that this crazy idea will actually come to fruition, but I'll be sure to update if it does.

I'm just hoping to get some other opinions from those that may be "in the know" about how all this stuff works.


BT

 

[912smoker]

I believe Redicans , and others here, fought and won the temp battles. Maybe he'll jump in.

Keith

 

[Redicans]

As mentioned I like your ambition!! Sounds like a workable idea. You can get a pretty good coal bed and fire going in the FB on the grand champ but I don't know enough about the science either to say how the whole unit would work. My temps are pretty even side to side with about a 50* difference top to bottom but that is normal.

I Find that if I build my fire closer to the FB door side my temps are really even but if I build closer to the CC side my right side has higher temps then the stack side. I also run a stack extension. I use the baffle plate as designed and have a fire brick on each side of the baffle plate in the CC pushed up to the FB. I will take some pics and post them here to show you what I mean.

How I run my water pan.

Fire brick and baffle.

Firebox with fire brick. I guess I would call it semi insulated. Definitely adds thermal mass and I feel like that is good for this cooker. When finished with a cook I just remove the bricks and fire basket slide the ash pan out and dump then put everything back only takes me a few minutes. Only top bricks need to come out as the ash pan slides out under the bottom bricks with no problem.

 

[Black Titan]

As mentioned I like your ambition!! Sounds like a workable idea. You can get a pretty good coal bed and fire going in the FB on the grand champ but I don't know enough about the science either to say how the whole unit would work. My temps are pretty even side to side with about a 50* difference top to bottom but that is normal.

I Find that if I build my fire closer to the FB door side my temps are really even but if I build closer to the CC side my right side has higher temps then the stack side. I also run a stack extension. I use the baffle plate as designed and have a fire brick on each side of the baffle plate in the CC pushed up to the FB. I will take some pics and post them here to show you what I mean.

View attachment 699424

How I run my water pan.

View attachment 699425

Fire brick and baffle.

View attachment 699426View attachment 699427

Firebox with fire brick. I guess I would call it semi insulated. Definitely adds thermal mass and I feel like that is good for this cooker. When finished with a cook I just remove the bricks and fire basket slide the ash pan out and dump then put everything back only takes me a few minutes. Only top bricks need to come out as the ash pan slides out under the bottom bricks with no problem.

Did you have to cut your bricks at all? I had gotten some from Tractor Supply and tried to fit them similarly to how yours are in your firebox but could not get them to fit. I couldn't figure a way to cut them without destroying them.

My hot spot when ran stock is very similar to yours, right there under that water pan.

Speaking of the bricks, I do believe they help quite a bit in the firebox. The best side to side temps I was ever able to achieve came when I didn't use the basket or coal grate, and placed bricks in the bottom of the box and built my coal bed on that. I did have my fire go out a couple of times due to lack of air getting underneath, but temps stayed consistent.

I've had mine up to around 500° before on accident with a runaway log. The smoker handled it well. I'm really curious if this box would heat two cook chambers in the way I described in my original post. If all I lost of my cooking area was that same small spot, I would consider it a win.

BT

 

[Redicans]

Did you have to cut your bricks at all? I had gotten some from Tractor Supply and tried to fit them similarly to how yours are in your firebox but could not get them to fit. I couldn't figure a way to cut them without destroying them.

My hot spot when ran stock is very similar to yours, right there under that water pan.

Speaking of the bricks, I do believe they help quite a bit in the firebox. The best side to side temps I was ever able to achieve came when I didn't use the basket or coal grate, and placed bricks in the bottom of the box and built my coal bed on that. I did have my fire go out a couple of times due to lack of air getting underneath, but temps stayed consistent.

I've had mine up to around 500° before on accident with a runaway log. The smoker handled it well. I'm really curious if this box would heat two cook chambers in the way I described in my original post. If all I lost of my cooking area was that same small spot, I would consider it a win.

BT

Yeah I had to cut the bricks. I used a hand grinder with a ceramic/concrete disc. It worked perfect. I think it was about an inch I had to cut off to fit the FB.

I Have had the bottom rack loaded full on a couple of cooks. Basically right up to the water pan and yes I had to move things around a bit but not to much. Yeah I have messed around with a few configuration in the FB as well. I had a some success with the fire brick only and fire right on top but I did struggle with keeping it going sometimes. I have settled on my current setup and am happy how it performs.

I think your idea of welding two together sounds like a cool Idea though. I would think it would work fine once everything comes up to temp. Maybe a little cooler on the stack side but you could use that for certain things you don't want to cook as fast. Thinking like pork butts and ribs down there then Chicken thighs or whatever on the FB side. You would definitely have a lot of room to work with which sounds like you would like to have. If you do it keep us posted!! I remember seeing someone do something similar on a OKJ combo, took out the gas side and made it just a bigger smoker. I can't remember where I saw that though.

 

[Black Titan]

Yeah I had to cut the bricks. I used a hand grinder with a ceramic/concrete disc. It worked perfect. I think it was about an inch I had to cut off to fit the FB.

I Have had the bottom rack loaded full on a couple of cooks. Basically right up to the water pan and yes I had to move things around a bit but not to much. Yeah I have messed around with a few configuration in the FB as well. I had a some success with the fire brick only and fire right on top but I did struggle with keeping it going sometimes. I have settled on my current setup and am happy how it performs.

I think your idea of welding two together sounds like a cool Idea though. I would think it would work fine once everything comes up to temp. Maybe a little cooler on the stack side but you could use that for certain things you don't want to cook as fast. Thinking like pork butts and ribs down there then Chicken thighs or whatever on the FB side. You would definitely have a lot of room to work with which sounds like you would like to have. If you do it keep us posted!! I remember seeing someone do something similar on a OKJ combo, took out the gas side and made it just a bigger smoker. I can't remember where I saw that though.

I could see it working, but it's a pricey experiment lol. I love the way mine cooks, it's just a bit small. And if I have a good sized butt on the bottom rack, I end up having to take the top rack put completely because it won't fit under it.

Here was my father's day cook - two butts totalling around 14 pounds, 6 racks of ribs, there was a chuck roast I did poor man's burnt ends with, and then once I pulled the butts and wrapped the ribs, I threw on some texas twinkies.

BT

 

[Redicans]

Hell Yeah, that all looks Amazing!! I hear you on the Butts, had to do the same thing with the top rack.Yeah you have a lot of meat on there! It is a good smoker and I really enjoy mine. For me it is a good size for what I cook but understand if cooking for bigger parties you could use more space.