Jacks old South Cooker

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wyatt2050

Fire Starter
Original poster
Mar 10, 2009
35
10
Does anybody own a Jacks old south cooker? I am just curious about the quality of this smoker.
 
I don't but it is a running joke around the house that he stole my idea,,,,, I thought I was the only one who thought of a big upright watter smoker,,,, then I saw his pit... LOL I can't come up with annything orignal....

It is the basic design I am using to build one.
 
I don't own one, but I have cooked next to Myron on more than one occassion. If what they sell is the same quality as what he uses, it is build like a tank.
 
You watch too much TLC lately
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He calls it "double insulated" does that mean he has two walls of insulation or just like the rest...he has an inner skin and an outer skin with insulation in the middle?
 
I've heard him say that before but on this weeks episode of Pitmasters he had to wrap the smoker in army blankets to retain heat.
Didn't appear too insulated!
 
Opening both those big @ss doors to spritz every 15 minutes cant help.
 
I may be wrong but in the past has he not used a rig with a bunch of different smokers (The double insulated). This week he just had a little tent and small smoker.
 
That's right.

Myron has a competition trailer with 3 separate smokers. I know a couple of them are insulated. Everybody (BWS, Stumps, Spicewine, etc.) keeps saying they are "double" insulated, but in actuality they aren't "double" insulated....they are double walled with insulation in the middle.

I used to own a Maxey smoker (that's what Myron uses). Myron is a good guy and was influencial in my buying one. He has since taken an ownership stake in the company (either that or he has Maxey make them for him and then he "badge engineers" them into Jack's Smokers).

My smoker wasn't insulated. It was very similar to small one he used in ther recent Dover competiton on Pitmasters show. We added an additional top shelf (rarely used it). It was a darn good hog cooker. I ended up selling it and buying a more practical Backwoods smoker (he still let's me borrow it when I need it
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so all is good).

http://maxeyfab.com/index.html
http://www.jacksoldsouth.com/cookers/
 
How do you like your BWS? Do you wish you would have kept the Maxey?
 
When I read (from his website) "These cookers have no cold or hot spots" and see that the firebox is a full tray that sits under the smoke chamber, it makes me wonder how that's possible. It's going to cook down unevenly and you will have to rake the coals to maintain even temperature, right? But that's like saying my Chargriller maintains 1 degree of accuracy...if I adjust the damper every 15 seconds.
 
Good point....Does anyone else have a comment or know anything about this?
 
I don't like most of what I've seen Myron cooking on during Pitmasters shows (minus the trailered rig). The charcoal design seems very labor intensive/unreliable, but I guess that's fine if you only cook for six hours. Have you seen him light his pit? Yikes!

One thing I've noticed though...how come everybody on that show talks about using green wood versus seasoned, especially those using peach wood...? I get that the wood yields more smoke that way, but what about the good old tbs factor?
 
when you cook hot and fast like some cookers do, you are not as worried about TBS as much, cooking hot and using green wood put out quite a bit of smoke. When you cook hot and fast your brisket may only be in that enviroment for 4-6 hours.
 
The coal box is about 2 feet long (re-watch Pitmasters and you'll see Myron pull it out of the smoker and torch it up with lighter fluid). and slides on rails. It can be pushed from one end to the other in the smoker. It DOES cook evenly and there's really no need to move the coal box from one end to the other.

As with any big cooker. Like Dobey said on Pitmasters to Tuffy...you gotta get the cooker hot and rolling before putting the meat on. One main reason is the water pan hold over 50 gallons.
 
The more I cook the more I believe this about all cookers.
 
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