Greetings from Western Mass.

[uncle rickers]

New to the site, but not really new to smoking. Started using an old propane grill that I somewhat converted into a smoker (racks, wood box, thermometer, etc). Other than only having a small smoke surface to work on, this actual made from great small meals.

Well, family bought me a smoker from the big K, and I have been experimenting with it fro a couple of months now. As you can guess, first fire up was a near disaster, the ol' stand-by propane was calling into action after the first load of fuel cooled and the second chimney load couldn't get the smoke box temps high enough.

After searching many avenues, and stumbling upon the great site, I have made a few mods, like one for each firing, to see what if anything I could do to make this work.

I now have the chimney extension, the baffle plate ( the original charcoal tray upside down) and have been using water trays for baffles and moisture induction and a fuel basket. I still have issues with getting the temps back up after the first basket load has done it's job after the first few hours.

Also, even with the fuel box loaded to the max, and two chimneys full of red hot coals, about the only thing I've managed to do is burn off the paint. Temps never get above 235, with two accurate thermometers, stack wide open and damper at max.

I am thinking of converting this smoker to a propane burner. It make great food, just requires constant fuel adding and minute to minute attention.

 

[rbranstner]

Welcome to the SMF Uncle Rickers we are glad to have you join us. I can't wait to see some pictures (aka. Qview) coming from you.

 

[richoso1]

Thanks for the introduction, and welcome to the SMF. Most of us switch/upgrade/swap out smokers along the way to being satisfied. it's all good my friend.

 

[Dutch]

Welcome to SMF Uncle Rickers. It's sounds like you are on the right track to getting that smoker to work properly. Hopefully, some of the members that have the same type smoker that you do will chime in with some suggestions on how they run their unit. 

 

[mballi3011]

 First off welcome Uncle to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are alot of really good folks that would just love to help you with anything to do with smoking. Now we like having new folks here to give a new prospective on some of the ways we do things around here. Now if you are really new then I would suggest that you sign up fir the 5-day E-course it free and it will give you the basics on smoking and a few recipes too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/list/127

then you will have a method to your newly found madness and believe me it will be a madness. Then when you start smoking things you will have to learn how to post the pictures / Qview 

here. So here's a link to a tutorial on how to post your Qview so we can see what your doing.

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/82034/how-to-post-qview-to-smf

Now the next thing you have to do is run out and get something to smoke. Then just smoke it and if you have any questions just post  them here and we will answer all your questions that you might have. Oh yea there's no stupid questions we were all there in the beginning and we just really like to help others enjoy the fabulous smoked foods that we do. So again

 

Welcome to Your New Addiction

 

[sqwib]

Welcome Uncle Rickers.

Try to post some pics so we can check out your mods.