Has anyone used the "Heavy D" Stick burner attachment?

[SlowmotionQue]

Nice results. Great job.

 

[SlowmotionQue]

Well, another day, another cook, another data point.

This time, a 14.75lb brisket, using less wood, foil wrap with the ends of the foil wraps left open and placed with the open ends towards the right when the SD HD is positioned.

This was for a 14hr plus cook.

This was left over from a full hopper, 35lbs, mix of Lumberjack Char Hickory, CookinPellets Perfect Mix and Lumberjack Competition Blend.

This is what the wood looked like immediately after the 14hrs plus cook.

The wood smoldered, but mostly got smoked itself. I would have liked for a bit more ignition of the wood. Next time I do this, I will make a 1 inch wide slit down the length of the foil wrap, in addition to leaving the ends open, in an attempt to get a bit better ignition of the wood.

The brisket turned out excellent, but I will be continuing in my efforts to tweak the foil wrap technique in the SD HD.

Also, the temps stayed stable at 250* plus or minus 5 degrees, save for the time I opened the lid this morning to foil the brisket.

Foil seems to definitely be the way to go. The question now is how much of the wood to leave exposed so as to acquire the benefit of additional wood smoke, while keeping the temperatures in line.

 

[RCAlan]

Well, another day, another cook, another data point.

This time, a 14.75lb brisket, using less wood, foil wrap with the ends of the foil wraps left open and placed with the open ends towards the right when the SD HD is positioned.

This was for a 14hr plus cook.

View attachment 398195

View attachment 398196


This was left over from a full hopper, 35lbs, mix of Lumberjack Char Hickory, CookinPellets Perfect Mix and Lumberjack Competition Blend.

View attachment 398197

This is what the wood looked like immediately after the 14hrs plus cook.
View attachment 398198
View attachment 398199

The wood smoldered, but mostly got smoked itself. I would have liked for a bit more ignition of the wood. Next time I do this, I will make a 1 inch wide slit down the length of the foil wrap, in addition to leaving the ends open, in an attempt to get a bit better ignition of the wood.

The brisket turned out excellent, but I will be continuing in my efforts to tweak the foil wrap technique in the SD HD.

Also, the temps stayed stable at 250* plus or minus 5 degrees, save for the time I opened the lid this morning to foil the brisket.

Foil seems to definitely be the way to go. The question now is how much of the wood to leave exposed so as to acquire the benefit of additional wood smoke, while keeping the temperatures in line.

The foiled burnt wood looks pretty good... I’m thinking, the higher the Grills set temp, the faster the burn and also, more smoke... If You do decide to expose more of the foiled wood, I would try it on one side of the SD HD at a time to gauge the increase smoke and burn. From Your current state of foiled wrapped wood, I’m thinking increase one sides exposure a little more and gauge it after a 4-6 hour cook and on the other side, increase its exposure a lot more while still being wrapped during the same cook. If Your grills temps are still within 5*-10* degrees of the set temp, but with a noticeable increase in TBS... Just a thought... I’m not going to be around my grill until next weekend, but I’m going to give it a shot myself and I’ll post back how things work out on my PB Austin XL when I do. Thanks for the update...

PB Austin XL in SoCal and Always... Semper Fi

 

[SlowmotionQue]

The foiled burnt wood looks pretty good... I’m thinking, the higher the Grills set temp, the faster the burn and also, more smoke... If You do decide to expose more of the foiled wood, I would try it on one side of the SD HD at a time to gauge the increase smoke and burn. From Your current state of foiled wrapped wood, I’m thinking increase one sides exposure a little more and gauge it after a 4-6 hour cook and on the other side, increase its exposure a lot more while still being wrapped during the same cook. If Your grills temps are still within 5*-10* degrees of the set temp, but with a noticeable increase in TBS... Just a thought... I’m not going to be around my grill until next weekend, but I’m going to give it a shot myself and I’ll post back how things work out on my PB Austin XL when I do. Thanks for the update...

PB Austin XL in SoCal and Always... Semper Fi

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'll give it a shot.

 

[dward51]

Looks like as a bonus, you get some free charcoal for the regular grill if you have one.

 

[SlowmotionQue]

Looks like as a bonus, you get some free charcoal for the regular grill if you have one.

True.

 

[kstone113]

How did the brisket come out slomotionque? I'm assuming amazing!

 

[kstone113]

And I did check my wood and it was all ash in the foil. I did though cook some food at 400* something.

I have decided to remove the Heavy D when grilling though and only use for when I'm doing longer smoke sessions.

Back to mine being ash though, I did use chunks(not logs) and some of the chunks were not so "chunky" lol

Appreciate the updates Slowmotionque. Great work!

 

[jkabrahamson]

Does anybody have a picture of the Heavy D install in a Pit Boss Austin XL or 1100 Pro? Maybe @RCAlan ? I just bought that and the smokey daddy drip tray to modify mine to help with more even distribution of temp. The swing's don't bother me -- but the uneven heat distribution makes the middle rack less functional.

Also, agree with @RCAlan -- you need to be using a water tray. As I tell me neighbor, when in doubt -- what would Aaron Franklin do?

 

[SlowmotionQue]

How did the brisket come out slomotionque? I'm assuming amazing!

It did turn out great.

 

[kstone113]

I did spare ribs again over the weekend. Ribs and rib tips came out great - awesome smoke flavor.

Thought I would share how I put the wood chunks in to maximize the amount of wood. The first time I kind of guessed on the wood amount and wrapped first and then put in the heavy d. This time I put the foil in first and then dropped int the wood and then poked holes in the aluminum for the air flow. This seemed to work really well and will be continuing this method.

Hope this helps some of you.

 

[ReefJones]

So, after pulling my 2nd brisket off my GMG using The Heavy D, to rescue it from HUGE temp jumps and flare ups, I finally went and bought a OKJoe offset, reverse flow, smoker. I didn't try ALL of the guidance offered by RCAlan (thanks btw) so I'm sure you can get it to work with enough finagling. For me, if I have to do that much on a pellet smoker, I would rather just manage a real fire (which I needed to learn to do anyway). For under 8 hour cooks/smokes, I plan to use my OKJoe. For brisket and longer cooks where I'm crutching, I plan to start on the OKJoe but move to the GMG so I can still sleep or step away from the house if needed.

With that said, if any one would like to try out the Heavy D, make me a decent offer and pay for shipping and it's yours. Or if you are in the Phoenix metro area (I'm in Gilbert) let me know and we can meet up.

In full disclosure, I'm inconsistently on here but will try to get back to you asap but don't be upset if it's not right away.

Happy smokin, fellas!
RJ

 

[SlowmotionQue]

So, after pulling my 2nd brisket off my GMG using The Heavy D, to rescue it from HUGE temp jumps and flare ups, I finally went and bought a OKJoe offset, reverse flow, smoker. I didn't try ALL of the guidance offered by RCAlan (thanks btw) so I'm sure you can get it to work with enough finagling. For me, if I have to do that much on a pellet smoker, I would rather just manage a real fire (which I needed to learn to do anyway). For under 8 hour cooks/smokes, I plan to use my OKJoe. For brisket and longer cooks where I'm crutching, I plan to start on the OKJoe but move to the GMG so I can still sleep or step away from the house if needed.

With that said, if any one would like to try out the Heavy D, make me a decent offer and pay for shipping and it's yours. Or if you are in the Phoenix metro area (I'm in Gilbert) let me know and we can meet up.

In full disclosure, I'm inconsistently on here but will try to get back to you asap but don't be upset if it's not right away.

Happy smokin, fellas!
RJ

Yeah, the temp swings that you see with this product in PID controlled grills, are a problem.

I've had someone offer to buy mine. But it weighs about 13lbs, and shipping it, if you do decide to sell it, is not going to be cheap.

 

[kstone113]

So, after pulling my 2nd brisket off my GMG using The Heavy D, to rescue it from HUGE temp jumps and flare ups, I finally went and bought a OKJoe offset, reverse flow, smoker. I didn't try ALL of the guidance offered by RCAlan (thanks btw) so I'm sure you can get it to work with enough finagling. For me, if I have to do that much on a pellet smoker, I would rather just manage a real fire (which I needed to learn to do anyway). For under 8 hour cooks/smokes, I plan to use my OKJoe. For brisket and longer cooks where I'm crutching, I plan to start on the OKJoe but move to the GMG so I can still sleep or step away from the house if needed.

With that said, if any one would like to try out the Heavy D, make me a decent offer and pay for shipping and it's yours. Or if you are in the Phoenix metro area (I'm in Gilbert) let me know and we can meet up.

In full disclosure, I'm inconsistently on here but will try to get back to you asap but don't be upset if it's not right away.

Happy smokin, fellas!
RJ

Hey man - too bad you didn't see this thread with the aluminum foil trick as it has worked for me like a charm and even RCLan who has a Pitboss (non-pid) however I am sure you will be happy with the OK Joe. I had thought about getting one of those(the reverse flow one) but I am so happy I went with Rec Tec. The PID controller is amazing and now being able to add different wood chunks to the mix with the Heavy D - it's just awesome! I don't have any temp spikes with the Heavy D but I did before we started doing the aluminum foil trick.

I'm doing beef cheeks or aka barbacoa today.....

As far as selling the Heavy D - if you could find some Rec Tec people in your area - they might be interested. It is heavy so might be expensive to ship.

 

[ReefJones]

Thanks, yeah you are both right about shipping and the weight. Maybe I'll hang on to it in case I ever sell the GMG, I can sell it with it.

I've only been heavy into smoking for about a year and a half and I'm addicted. Figured the GMG was a great grill to "cut my teeth on" plus we have a 4 and 6 yo kids so I was going for easy first; however, it is definitely time for me to learn how to manage a fire and leverage this reverse flow smoker to churn out even more deliciousness! I just finished modding up the OKJoe and will seasoning it this week. I'm already planning on reading though this awesome site to gain even more knowledge on offset smoking. This site, and everyone here, is always so helpful!
Thanks,
RJ

 

[RCAlan]

So, after pulling my 2nd brisket off my GMG using The Heavy D, to rescue it from HUGE temp jumps and flare ups, I finally went and bought a OKJoe offset, reverse flow, smoker. I didn't try ALL of the guidance offered by RCAlan (thanks btw) so I'm sure you can get it to work with enough finagling. For me, if I have to do that much on a pellet smoker, I would rather just manage a real fire (which I needed to learn to do anyway). For under 8 hour cooks/smokes, I plan to use my OKJoe. For brisket and longer cooks where I'm crutching, I plan to start on the OKJoe but move to the GMG so I can still sleep or step away from the house if needed.

With that said, if any one would like to try out the Heavy D, make me a decent offer and pay for shipping and it's yours. Or if you are in the Phoenix metro area (I'm in Gilbert) let me know and we can meet up.

In full disclosure, I'm inconsistently on here but will try to get back to you asap but don't be upset if it's not right away.

Happy smokin, fellas!
RJ

I hope You enjoy your OKJoe offset Smoker... You can enjoy both your new offset Smoker and your GMG Pellet Grill with the SD HD and have the best of both worlds. To get that great true wood smoke flavor from your GMG without the wild temp spikes because of the ignition of the wood just as Kstone113 posted with his RecTec Pellet Grill, is just wrap your wood chunks in Aluminum Foil, leave the wrapped wood chunk ends uncovered with aluminum foil to help allow some air in and place a few holes in the wrap... That’s it. It takes all of 2 mins. and no more wild temp swings or temp spikes. The Aluminum Foil helps to control the burn of the wood... The wood doesn’t burn out of control anymore when it’s wrapped, but is still allowed to take in some oxygen/air to produce a nice mellow burn/smoke. Kstone113 has a PID Controller RecTec pellet grill and he has his dialed in and I have a Pit Boss and mine is dialed in. I’m not even using a water pan anymore to fight the temp spikes. On my last cook, I even added a few small pieces of lump charcoal to the wood wrap just to add too the flavor profile and still no wild temp swings... Just TBS and a nice Pecan and Hickory Smoke flavor to my Brisket, Spares and Tri Tip... Whatever You decide, good luck.

PB Austin XL in SoCal and Always... Semper Fi

 

[SlowmotionQue]

Yeah, the foil definitely makes a difference.

 

[SlowmotionQue]

Yeah, the foil definitely makes a difference.

Or does it?

Well, it's been around a month now, and I have been using the SDHD but without loading it with wood, or better put, foil wrapped wood. And so I decided today to do another test.

Using hickory splits, wrapped in foil with about a 1 inch slit running the length of the foil wrap, I tried it again.

I started out with Kingsford split hickory logs that I had around the house. I cut these and split them enough for a quantity which would fill each chamber of the SDHD about 3/4 of it's capacity.

I then decided to weigh just how much wood I had cut, for future reference. The weight is in ounces.

So I have about 2lbs 4oz of wood. That may seem like a lot. But some of that depends upon the density of the wood, but more importantly, in the following pics, you will see that this is not nearly enough to actually fill the left and right chambers of the SDHD.

I then proceeded to wrap the wood in foil. leaving the foil open at the ends. I want the wood to smolder, but I don't want to leave it to ignite. I left about a 1 inch slit along the foil to expose the wood which would face the fire pot.

I then loaded the SDHD with the foil wrapped wood, ends open, slit facing to the inside and thus the slit facing the fire pot.

I placed the SDHD, drip pan and grates into their respective places, and prepared the ribs and remotely lit the RT 590 Stampede and set it for 225°F.

When the RT 590 hit the target temp, I put the seasoned ribs on and let it run.

These ribs had been running for a little over 3 hrs. During that period, I noticed the same amount of smoke, and the same wifts of smoke, as well as the same smoke aroma as I would always get when burning pellets only.

This led me to know that the wood had not ignited, or at the least, was not in flames as the temp remained steady during this 3hr period.

It was just after this 3hr period that the smoke color began to change to a more whitish color, indicating that the logs had ignited, and at or around the same time, the temps started to climb. And climb, and climb.

Now recall, I had set the RT 590 for 225° for a low and slow cook.

The next half hour, has convinced me that this accessory is not for me if I am going to run it with wood in it.

After propping the lid open, opening the lid, for several minutes, I had seen enough. I took the ribs off when the temps finally hit 315° after struggling to keep them down.

While the ribs were on, and I was opening the lid in an attempt to keep the temps down, I saw periodic flames licking around where the openings of the SDHD would be. This is only a glimpse, a smidgen of what I saw, just before I removed the ribs. The small flame that you see is but part of what I saw.

I have used this item before, and I knew that in my hands, once the wood gets flaming, that for me, there is no coming back from it unless I do what I did next.

I removed the ribs, removed the grates, removed the drip pan, and this is what I saw.

Halfway fearing pellet burn back at this point, I knew that I had time to act and so I very calmly got my vice grips and my Channel locks my welder's gloves, dragged over my fire pit and removed the now in flames SDHD from the RT 590 and placed the flaming diffuser into the fire pit.

I shut the RT 590 down with the intent of restarting it and finishing the ribs using my stock diffuser.

And emptied it out.

I let the rest of it burn out while I reassembled the grill using my stock diffuser, replacing the drip pan and grates, being careful to lift the lid before restarting the RT 590 Stampede to finish the cook. I finished the ribs at a set 225° and ran them for another hour at that temp before taking them off.

My thoughts:

I speak only from my own experiences here. I readily admit that your experience and experiences may be different from my own, but in my hands, having tried all that I know to try, and tinkering with this device, I am now pretty much convinced that it is not going to work for me other than as a replacement stock diffuser.

The idea and process of loading wood into it, has resulted in widely unpredictable temperature swings that I am not willing to tolerate for my own cooks.

This unpredictability, at least for me, and in my hands, is whether I have gone with or without bothering to cover the wood in foil.

I can only imagine what may have happened had I been doing an overnight cook with an expensive cut of meat as opposed to not being at grill side when the temps started to rise?

I recognized that this cook was getting away from me at a little over the 3hr point, and that I had to act quickly, lest I ruin that slab of ribs.

My own experience, and calmness, as well as having the right tools immediately around to quickly remove the diffuser, helped me to quickly manage the situation.

At any rate, the ribs turned out great. Some of the best I've done.

 

[kstone113]

Hey man, long time. A few things I do that stopped the flame ups and also ignites the wood faster.

While I don't think it is "needed", doing what smokedaddy said of putting it up to 300 or so and then taking it down will ignite the wood faster so thus you will get that wood smoke within the 3 hours. I like to cook ribs at 250 myself also.

I have been not leaving wood exposed at all even on the ends. I just poke small holes in the foil. That will serve you better.

However, all that said, if you don't think it worth the extra work, I don't blame you one bit. For shorter cooks, I just add pellets to the heat deflector and that seems to work well. I haven't been using my heavy d too much because I don't done brisket, ribs or pulled pork but I am very soon so will be using again.

If you don't want to mess with the heavy d, I would recommend for times you want wood smoke(not pellets), buy some of those half meat loath aluminum and put in front (or I believe side in your case). That from what people have said works well.

But you flamed up your wood b/c of the open ends. I haven't had one flame up since I started with foil. See my post earlier for how mine looked.

 

[SlowmotionQue]

Hey man, long time. A few things I do that stopped the flame ups and also ignites the wood faster.

While I don't think it is "needed", doing what smokedaddy said of putting it up to 300 or so and then taking it down will ignite the wood faster so thus you will get that wood smoke within the 3 hours. I like to cook ribs at 250 myself also.

I have been not leaving wood exposed at all even on the ends. I just poke small holes in the foil. That will serve you better.

However, all that said, if you don't think it worth the extra work, I don't blame you one bit. For shorter cooks, I just add pellets to the heat deflector and that seems to work well. I haven't been using my heavy d too much because I don't done brisket, ribs or pulled pork but I am very soon so will be using again.

If you don't want to mess with the heavy d, I would recommend for times you want wood smoke(not pellets), buy some of those half meat loath aluminum and put in front (or I believe side in your case). That from what people have said works well.

But you flamed up your wood b/c of the open ends. I haven't had one flame up since I started with foil. See my post earlier for how mine looked.

I appreciate the input.

I don't know if you have yet or not, but have you taken a look at post #82 of this thread?

It's my post. I believe that I may have been among the first, if not the first to use foil in an attempt to prevent wood ignition in this item.

In the following pics, another effort, you can see that I had poked holes into the foil using a screwdriver. The foil was wrapped tightly around the wood. The ends closed. Holes poked into the ends

Needless to say, the wood barely if even smoldered.

Take a look again at post #82 showing the pic at the right side chamber, and look at what happened to the right side log. This was with the ends of the foil open.

In that instance, some of the wood, namely that in the right side chamber, did nothing more than obtain a layer of soot over it .......even with the ends of the foil open.

In other words, the wood in the right chamber not only never ignited, but it also never even smoldered. All that it did was get a layer of soot all over it from burning pellets and possibly the wood from the other chamber.

And so that leaves a question for me of just how much of the wood needs to be exposed to avoid full ignition and runaway temps?

Do I punch holes into the ends, open the ends, close the ends? Punch holes in the sides?

I can only answer for myself, and my answer would be, "I don't know".

Open ends, closed ends, in my hands, and for me combustion of the wood has been unpredictable. No matter which way I go.

I don't like unpredictable.

I've done this before. And either I get no smoldering of the wood if I wrap it entirely and just poke holes, or I get ignition of the wood if I leave an end open.....and even have had an instance where I left the ends open and got ignition of the wood on one side, but not on the other.

But for me, the takeaway is, if the flames were this bad with just leaving the ends open for this cook, well then how bad would they have been had I not used any foil at all?

The actual instructions, at least to my knowledge, do not call for the use of foil at all. Or am I missing something?

I've used this device, following the instructions. That is using no foil, just wood chunks or small logs, and allowing the wood to ignite and then dropping the temps back down. My results have been mixed with that.

Once the wood ignites, there was no guarantee that it was going to go out simply because I backed off the heat coming from the firepot. And well that makes sense to me.

An ignited piece of wood can continue to remain in flames, even if no additional heat is applied to it once it is aflame.

So jacking the heat up in an attempt to ignite the wood, and then backing off, waiting for the flames to die out and then setting your cooking temp and going from there, is a concept that raises my eyebrows.

But yeah, as anything other than a replacement for my stock diffuser, this part will not be getting any further work in my cooks in terms of my putting wood into it.