Hi Folks,
My name is Trent and my wife and I reside in the Raleigh, NC area. I was directed to this site by a few of my coworkers who got me into smoking meat. I'm an amateur at best and have only been smoking meat (or attempting to) for a few months now.
For a living, I do environmental training and consulting and travel all over the US (including Puerto Rico and Hawaii). To make a long story short, I live half of my life in a hotel room eating whatever I can find at the local grocery store...
So on the weekend, it sure is nice to get home and cook something that tastes good.
So that has lead me here. I purchased the Master Forge (green) smoker from Lowes a few months ago and have done most of the modifications shown on this website. I think the thing that made the biggest difference was adding the bottom grate in the charcoal pan. In my limited experience, the air intakes and exhaust have been almost useless except for putting the fire out. I've tried Kingsford, All Natural Charcoal from Harris Teeter and most recently Royal Oak lump charcoal.
I've read that a lot of folks will fill the charcoal pan most of the way up and then dump a third of a chimney of fully lit charcoal into the pan and can control the temperature for several hours by adjusting the air intakes. I have tried this multiple times and every time I do it, no matter what I do to the air intakes, the entire pan of charcoal lights and the temperature is usually over 400 degrees for well over an hour. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...
If any of you have any advice on this I would love to hear it. Thanks and it's great to be here. I'm sure I can learn a lot from all of you.
Trent
My name is Trent and my wife and I reside in the Raleigh, NC area. I was directed to this site by a few of my coworkers who got me into smoking meat. I'm an amateur at best and have only been smoking meat (or attempting to) for a few months now.
For a living, I do environmental training and consulting and travel all over the US (including Puerto Rico and Hawaii). To make a long story short, I live half of my life in a hotel room eating whatever I can find at the local grocery store...
So that has lead me here. I purchased the Master Forge (green) smoker from Lowes a few months ago and have done most of the modifications shown on this website. I think the thing that made the biggest difference was adding the bottom grate in the charcoal pan. In my limited experience, the air intakes and exhaust have been almost useless except for putting the fire out. I've tried Kingsford, All Natural Charcoal from Harris Teeter and most recently Royal Oak lump charcoal.
I've read that a lot of folks will fill the charcoal pan most of the way up and then dump a third of a chimney of fully lit charcoal into the pan and can control the temperature for several hours by adjusting the air intakes. I have tried this multiple times and every time I do it, no matter what I do to the air intakes, the entire pan of charcoal lights and the temperature is usually over 400 degrees for well over an hour. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...
Trent
