Hey all. New guy here. Been lurking a couple of days and figured it was time to join the commentary. I'll ask my question first and then give some more info for those who don't want to read my life story below... is there any benefit/harm to insulating your smoker year-round instead of only during the winter months?
To elaborate... I've been smoking/grilling on a Char-Broiler Akorn grill for several years now. My usual meat choices that I smoked on it are Boston butts, pork tenderloins, whole turkeys, and picnic shoulders. I have a PartyQ fan blower that I don't believe is manufactured anymore but there are tons of blowers available now. I set my Akorn up to smoke using the "ring of fire" method, which I think is also referred to as the snake method. That method, plus the fan blower, would generally get me 7-8 hours of mostly consistent cooking times, though I typically did have trouble keeping the temps dialed in to stay below 250.
I've wanted to move to a more traditional smoker for a while now and this last week I just purchased a Dyna-Glow Signature Series Vertical Smoker and got it put together over the weekend. Did the initial burn-in with some Pam. I've had some meat in the freezer set aside for a while now to do some beef sticks and jerky and I'm getting ready to dive into doing my first official smoke this weekend.
I originally went with the Akorn because I wanted to try out an insulated grill but couldn't afford a Big Green Egg. What I enjoyed about the Akorn was that it didn't take a lot of lump charcoal combined with the ROF/snake method to keep mostly consistent temps - I didn't have to babysit the grill for hours. Through all of my research, though, babysitting a smoker is the one thing that I seem to see noted repeatedly so you'd probably wonder why I went with a traditional offset smoker instead of a pellet grill. Mostly the pellet grills (which I've read over and over again require very little babysitting at all) have time and time again been noted as not imparting as much of a smoke ring as any other smoking method and this was key for me. If I was going to get a new grill with the intention of getting the best smoke flavor then I wanted a smoker that would get me the best smoke potential.
But I'm also not wanting to sit beside a grill all afternoon and maintain the temps. I'm hoping to utilize what I learned from my Akorn and implement it into the new Dyna-Glow smoker. I've already bought T-shaped dividers in order to set my lump charcoal up into the minion method inside of the firebox. The Dyna-Glow smoker's metal is fairly thick, or at least it was thicker than I was expecting it to be. My smoking theory/goals are to figure out how to set up the smoker in a way that it will burn consistent temperatures for several hours without adjusting dampers or charcoal/wood every 15-30 minutes. Knowing what I know about the Akorn and BGE is that insulation = better heat retention while using less fuel. That's what I want to bring to this smoker.
I've tried to do a lot of research on this and haven't really found any evidence as to why a person shouldn't insulate their smoker year-round. My thought was... if you wrap the smoking chamber (and potentially also the firebox) in an insulating fire-wrap, welder's blanket, etc (other options have been suggested in the forums here) then you would retain more heat, thereby maintaining more consistent temperatures and (hopefully) use less fuel in the firebox all at the same time. So why wouldn't someone insulate their smoker year-round?
I live in middle Georgia and it's currently high 80s-low 90s in temperature so I'm obviously not worried about cold temperatures - even our winters have been fairly mild the past several years rarely getting below 35 degrees. Unless I'm missing something it just seems like a no-brainer that someone would wrap their smoker to get similar heat-retention performance as an insulated grill like a BGE. Thoughts?
If you made it this far reading everything I applaud you and thank you for your time!
To elaborate... I've been smoking/grilling on a Char-Broiler Akorn grill for several years now. My usual meat choices that I smoked on it are Boston butts, pork tenderloins, whole turkeys, and picnic shoulders. I have a PartyQ fan blower that I don't believe is manufactured anymore but there are tons of blowers available now. I set my Akorn up to smoke using the "ring of fire" method, which I think is also referred to as the snake method. That method, plus the fan blower, would generally get me 7-8 hours of mostly consistent cooking times, though I typically did have trouble keeping the temps dialed in to stay below 250.
I've wanted to move to a more traditional smoker for a while now and this last week I just purchased a Dyna-Glow Signature Series Vertical Smoker and got it put together over the weekend. Did the initial burn-in with some Pam. I've had some meat in the freezer set aside for a while now to do some beef sticks and jerky and I'm getting ready to dive into doing my first official smoke this weekend.
I originally went with the Akorn because I wanted to try out an insulated grill but couldn't afford a Big Green Egg. What I enjoyed about the Akorn was that it didn't take a lot of lump charcoal combined with the ROF/snake method to keep mostly consistent temps - I didn't have to babysit the grill for hours. Through all of my research, though, babysitting a smoker is the one thing that I seem to see noted repeatedly so you'd probably wonder why I went with a traditional offset smoker instead of a pellet grill. Mostly the pellet grills (which I've read over and over again require very little babysitting at all) have time and time again been noted as not imparting as much of a smoke ring as any other smoking method and this was key for me. If I was going to get a new grill with the intention of getting the best smoke flavor then I wanted a smoker that would get me the best smoke potential.
But I'm also not wanting to sit beside a grill all afternoon and maintain the temps. I'm hoping to utilize what I learned from my Akorn and implement it into the new Dyna-Glow smoker. I've already bought T-shaped dividers in order to set my lump charcoal up into the minion method inside of the firebox. The Dyna-Glow smoker's metal is fairly thick, or at least it was thicker than I was expecting it to be. My smoking theory/goals are to figure out how to set up the smoker in a way that it will burn consistent temperatures for several hours without adjusting dampers or charcoal/wood every 15-30 minutes. Knowing what I know about the Akorn and BGE is that insulation = better heat retention while using less fuel. That's what I want to bring to this smoker.
I've tried to do a lot of research on this and haven't really found any evidence as to why a person shouldn't insulate their smoker year-round. My thought was... if you wrap the smoking chamber (and potentially also the firebox) in an insulating fire-wrap, welder's blanket, etc (other options have been suggested in the forums here) then you would retain more heat, thereby maintaining more consistent temperatures and (hopefully) use less fuel in the firebox all at the same time. So why wouldn't someone insulate their smoker year-round?
I live in middle Georgia and it's currently high 80s-low 90s in temperature so I'm obviously not worried about cold temperatures - even our winters have been fairly mild the past several years rarely getting below 35 degrees. Unless I'm missing something it just seems like a no-brainer that someone would wrap their smoker to get similar heat-retention performance as an insulated grill like a BGE. Thoughts?
If you made it this far reading everything I applaud you and thank you for your time!
