Hi all, New old Bar-B-Chef offset smoker

[curtwitt]

Hi all,

A member of my brewing club in San Diego did a little garage maintenance and I ended up with a Bar-B-Chef offset smoker with all of its parts except the lid thermometer, a bunch of supplies and a starter. I’ve been wanting to learn to smoke chicken and meats as well as some of my homemade cheese. The learning curve is set. Tomorrow I’m starting with a chicken, cheap and forgiving. Brining, dry rubbing and using apple chips for smoke. I have a couple digital probe thermometers so should be good for meat and smoker temp.

My questions actually have to do with setup of the smoker. It has 6 grills, 3 large and 3 small, so I imagine the small go on the bottom and the large above in both the fire box and the cooking chamber. So, does the fire get built on the lower rack? If so, what is the upper for? I presume the lower in the cooking chamber is for a pan of water to catch the drippings. Am I getting this all correct?

Thanks for any input. Been reading around the web but any hints on the specifics of my smoker are welcome.

 

[SmokinAl]

Do you have a photo of the inside of the smoker?
Al

 

[ristau5741]

concept of an offset is that the fire goes in the offset side, usually a smaller side box off the main unit. build your fire in there. put meat in main unit. I bought my side firebox as a separate unit, the "grill" came with small grates ( and attachment screws to attach to the main unit). I don't use the small grates very much. If the bottom of your smoker box doesn't have grates to build your fire on, you can try to use the smaller grates, if they fit to built the fire on. you wouldn't want to build fire directly on the bottom of the smoker box, air flow issues. if they don't fit, get some expanded steel from local home improvement store and fashion yourself out a charcoal basket. The bigger grates should fit in the main unit, and that's where to meat would go.

 

[dcecil]

If you go under the search tab and type in bar-b-chef offset smoker you will find some threads about them on the site. Here is one link you can check out but there are several others you can find if you actually use the search tab

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/bar-b-chef-offset-smoker.51093/

 

[curtwitt]

Thanks all for the responses and Happy New Year. I ended up putting the small grate in the firebox and pouring the lit coals on there from the chimney. I managed to keep the temp between 220 and 250 but I found it challenging. At the far end of the smoker box it was more like 210 most of the time so I put the chicken closer to the firebox. I kept the chimney wide open and the firebox vent from 1/2 to full depending upon temperature. I found myself having to feed a fair amount of charcoal during the 3 hrs the chicken was on the grill. I did turn the chicken a couple of times to even things out. I used wet apple chunks and a little hickory at the end, which gave a nice level of smoke but I think next time I will not wet because of the drop in temp upon adding. I put the bottom racks in a put a pan under the chicken. The chicken turned out great, albeit a little more done than I wanted. I took the breast to 165 so I think I would back off some next time. I used a rub that contained fine ground espresso beans, cinnamon, cumin, garlic, salt, brown sugar and cayenne, quirky but interesting. Flavor profile was excellent. Came out nice. Crisped up the skin over the coals at the end by putting on the bigger rack but the fire was a little hot so there was a lot of flaring. Next time I would also do at least two and probably three chickens. It seems to me I could piggy back some brisket or pork butt and change up the smoke for the last several hours.

I'm going to do some of the mods, extending the chimney down to the rack, installing a baffle, etc. I'm also going to try some pellets for some cold smoking salmon and see how that works.

 

[curtwitt]

Do you have a photo of the inside of the smoker?
Al

Sorry, forgot to take one. I have to clean it tomorrow and will try to remember to take a couple shots.