Firing up the smoker this afternoon!

[hawgheaven]

I'm taking a half day off, we're slow here at work, so I'm stopping at BJ's Wholesale on the way home to grab something smokeable... I'm thinking a meatloaf for dinner would be nice.

I'm too impatient to wait for the weekend to test out these new mods on my CG!

I'll post the smoke later today...

 

[ron50]

Sounds good, looking foreward to seeing the results.

 

[deejaydebi]

Meatloaf sounds good and won't take all night. Let us know how it works!

 

[bbq bubba]

C'mon hawg, how'd it go, wanna hear how your mods worked

 

[wvsmokeman]

Me too!!!!

 

[squeezy]

Yeah ... come on Hawg, give it up!

 

[watery eyes]

De-Tails!!!
De-Tails!!!
De-Tails!!!
De-Tails!!!
De-Tails!!!


........and pictures.

 

[bbq bubba]

I think somebody enjoyed their day off a little too much

 

[hawgheaven]

Sorry I didn't get back here last night, it got really sleepy out. So here goes...

Meatloaf it was, along with ABTs! Both turned out AWESOME!!!

I used a combo of ground pork and ground beef in the meatloaf, along with onion, garlic, green pepper, breadcrumbs, eggs, a little ketchup, milk, salt and pepper. I got the smoker up to 250, set up the ET-73, then hit the grates. I put the ABT's on about 30 minutes before the meatloaf was done. I removed the meatloaf at 160, then stoked the smoker up to 300 to finish off the ABTs.

Now for the mods. The baffle worked great... that totally eliminated the hot spot. I need to play with the tuning plates a little more to get the feel of them. I was having a little trouble getting up to temp, so I removed one of them (there are three) at the baffle end... all was well after that. I need to do a few more smokes I think.

I got a few pix of the evening's bounty... I really need a new camera! The one on the left is the meatloaf as it was going into the smoker, center is the awesome ABTs, and last is what was left of the meatloaf. That's gonna be my sammich for lunch!

 

[hawgheaven]

I forgot to tell you guys about the chimney performance. OUTSTANDING! I loaded it up about half way with lump charcoal, placed it on the turkey fryer burner and got it started. I had hot coals in about 5 minutes!

I love it when stuff I build works!

 

[watery eyes]

Congrats on a great smoke!!!!

I'm sure you'll be turning out great "Q" over the next couple weeks from your new smoker.

 

[jts70]

Sounds great gald it turned out for ya hawg!

 

[squeezy]

Help me out here ... I understand about baffles ... but ... tuning plates, what is that please?

 

[triple b]

Way to go Hawg!

Gotta love when an idea works!

Keep on smokin'!

 

[msmith]

Food looked great hawg. I also had the same problem with the tunning plates on mine and had to take 2 out. They would work in mine if I turned it into a reverse flow smoker but am gonna leave it just like it is.

 

[billyq]

Where are the mashed taters? MMMMMMM....comfort food.

 

[hawgheaven]

They are pieces of sheet metal laying across the bottom of the smoking chamber and just above the baffle. The heat comes out of the SFB, under these plates, heating them up, which in theory, should help even out the heat from one end to the other. They can be moved around or eliminated to achieve the desired effect. I think they might be overkill in my situation though...

 

[msmith]

Hawg did you modify the smoke stack also?. I had a new bransfuls similar to your smoker and and put in the deflector plate and 1 tuning plate then moved the smoke stack to the end of the barrel and cut in just below the grates. I gave the smoker to my son-in-law and I guess he has not fired it up since the mods were made looks like I will have too just to see how it works. When I do I'll let you know how it performed.

 

[hawgheaven]

Yes, I did modify the smoke stack. I installed a length of flexible dry vent tubing to extend the stack to grate level. Seems to work well...

 

[squeezy]

Thanks for the info, but I still find it a bit 'baffling' (pun intended)