Just want to say thanks!!!

[cjj67]

I'm new and i just want to say thanks to all the help and advise that was posted, I have built a nice smoker. I still have problems getting it up to temp, but the answer is in this forum somewhere. Again, thank you for sharing your ideas, humor, pictures and experiences.

Smoke on...

Other than the guages and paint/primer, nothing was store bought. 

Again, thank you.

 

[cheech]

If you share some of the pictures inside the unit we can try to figure out what is up with the temps

Nice work

 

[richoso1]

Welcome to the SMF, and thanks for sharing that great pic of your smoker. I moved your thread to roll call so that everyone has the chance to give you a warm welcome. It's all good my friend.

 

[mballi3011]

 Sweet smoker

 

 First off welcome Boozzer to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are alot of really good folks that would just love to help you with anything to do with smoking. Now we like having new folks here to give a new prospective on some of the ways we do things around here. Now if you are really new then I would suggest that you sign up fir the 5-day E-course it free and it will give you the basics on smoking and a few recipes too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/list/127

then you will have a method to your newly found madness and believe me it will be a madness. Then when you start smoking things you will have to learn how to post the pictures / Qview 

here. So here's a link to a tutorial on how to post your Qview so we can see what your doing.

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/82034/how-to-post-qview-to-smf

Now the next thing you have to do is run out and get something to smoke. Then just smoke it and if you have any questions just post  them here and we will answer all your questions that you might have. Oh yea there's no stupid questions we were all there in the beginning and we just really like to help others enjoy the fabulous smoked foods that we do. So again

 

Welcome to Your New Addiction  

 

[rhankinsjr]

Welcome to the forum!

That's a very nice smoker you have there.  I hate that it is not getting up to temp, but like cheech said post up some pics of the inside of the smoker, and the firebox side and I'm sure some of these Q-engineers will give you the answers you desire!

 

[TulsaJeff]

cjj67,

Welcome to the forum.. glad to have you.

It appears to me that your firebox is a little small for the size of your cooking chamber.. there is a ratio of recommended firebox size to cooking chamber size and I don't know what that is right off the top of my head. Seems like it was about 1:3 but I could be off on that

How hard would it be to install a larger firebox?

It also looks like you are setup with a reverse flow.. I assume you have a plate that runs underneath the grate almost all the way across the cooking chamber?

 

[fftwarren]

beautiful smoker

 

[ak1]

Nice looking smoker! Welcome aboard.

As Jeff says, it looks like the firebox might be too small.

 

[smokednarwhal]

That is some fine looking work you did.  I hope you are able to figure out how to fix the temp problem.  Is it reverse flow? Damper in the chimney?  Maybe adding some firebrick inside the smoker near the firebox.  Just throwing some things out there.  Some detailed photos and measurements will help others help you.  Good luck.

 

[realtorterry]

I wish I had just a tenth of that craftmanship!!

Welcome

 

[meateater]

Welcome to the SMF. Glad to have you here. Lots of good folks, great recipes and knowledge. Looking forward to your first qview.

 

[treegje]

Welcome to the SMF, We are glad to have you onboard

a very beautiful smoker you have

 

[que-ball]

I'm not experienced with SFB smokers, but the first thing that struck me when I saw the pic of your beautiful toy was that the firebox seems small for your cooking chamber.  If you can show us more qview of her insides (a build thread?), there are plenty of knowledgable people here that can give you ideas.  Hopefully this can be fixed for you without having to resort to a firebox transplant!

 

[cjj67]

Again, thanks for all the help. I'm probably looking at a "fire box transplant" as Que-ball stated. I called the guy who gave me the smaller tank and he says that it is 30 gallons. The top tank is 80 but from what I've read, she can't be 30 gallons. I used two chimneys this weekend and she got up to 200. So now I'll find a bigger burner box. Great group and thanks for the patience and guidance. 

 

[fftwarren]

looks like a 15-20 gallon fire box to me. Is the pit set up as a reverse flow system? if its not the that could be the problem, the smoke stack right above your heat inlet

 

[cjj67]

It's a reverse flow and I am burning charcoal. Smokenarwhal, I don't have a damper in the chimney should I add one? I'm on the hunt for a larger fire box but here are some more pics of the build as requested.

Thanks.