Need advise on an Oklahoma Joe's Highland for a first offset smoker

[kevin james]

So I really want to get my first offset smoker, but due to certain issues there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of options available to me. As much as I would prefer an Old Country Pecos or a more high end smoker with thicker metal and better build quality like a Kat, Lonestar Grill, or a Lang Patio, I can't. The money isn't really the issue , it's other things and I'll get into why none of those are options at the end of this post, but for now I'd like to focus on the question about the Oklahoma Joe Highland which is doable.

So, first and foremost I absolutely recognize that the OK Joe is fairly thin metal, and that you get what you pay for, but I also see that while not cheap there are a ton of mods that I would think (and hope) might be able to turn it into a decent smoker. I was looking at this site https://bbqsmokermods.com/oem-smoker-mods-by-brand/oklahoma-joe-s/highland.html, and was thinking about getting the baffle/tuning plate kit, the water pan, the double deck expansion rack kit, the charcoal basket and the gasket kit. Yes, I realize that the total of the mods is more than the total of the actual smoker itself, but as mentioned above, it seems the OK Joe and these mods is the best option I can actually make work for the foreseeable future. I'd like to hear opinions from some Highland owners, especially anyone with any of these mods. I'm wondering how difficult it is to dial in and hold temps from 200 on the low up to 275 on the high, and if temps are fairly even across the grate with the tuning plate kit.

Why a Pecos is not an option:
It seems the only way to get a Pecos is to buy from Academy Sports. I live in California, and due to our stupid prop 65 law Academy will not ship ANYTHING to California... nothing... I couldn't even buy a pair of sweats or a basketball from them. They simply will not sell and ship anything to anyone in my state. I have a call in to Old Country BBQ pits who manufactures it to see if I can buy from them directly, but I'm not holding my breath as it seems an exclusive product to Academy.

Why a Kat, Lone Star Grill or Lang is not an option right now:
Long story short the thicker metal makes all of them way to heavy. Most of these seem to be somewhere around 600 lbs or more, which means they are not going to be very easy to move. I have an EXTREMELY narrow passage way into my back yard with no more than 24" of clearance, and I also have a ton of work that needs to be done to make my yard even remotely usable as the majority is on a steep slope. I need to have several trees and a huge and ancient water fountain removed, then flatten the whole yard out, and finally pour a big concrete pad. That is going to be expensive and will take me the better part of the next two years to accomplish due to the expense. I would need to be able to get the smoker in and out of my backyard fairly easily as I needs to be gone to pour the concrete later on. I'm just nervous that it will be too difficult trying to move a 600 lb + smoker by myself through a long 24" passage way. Sorry for the long explanation on this part... but that's the honest and real reason why I can't seem to find anything that will work. I plan to get a Kat 20 x 48 after the back yard is done... but that's a long way away and I don't want to wait two years to get an offset. The OK Joe is doable because it's available in my area and at only 178 lb's I can easily move it.

 

[MikeFromTexas]

Maybe if you ordered the heavier smokers with four wheels/casters you could move it easier.

 

[flagriller]

Here's a thought, do you know anyone or have any relatives that live outside the state? If so, arrange to have the Pecos shipped there and have them ship it to you person to person. Also as a side note, I used a Chargriller Offset for years with great results.

 

[kruizer]

I have the Oklahoma Joe Highland with all the mods you spoke of but I added a BBQ guru fan to feed air to the fire box and the whole setup works really great. The one thing you have to keep an eye on is rust on the fire box. Just keep that maintained and you will have a smoker that will last you a long time.

 

[kevin james]

Maybe if you ordered the heavier smokers with four wheels/casters you could move it easier.

All of them have four casters.... but casters or not 600 lbs + is a lot of weight, and pushing that through a long 24" pathway over dirt is going to be extremely difficult.

The smoker I REALLY want is a Kat 20x48 and I'd really like to get the version with the verticle warming rack. Kat's smokers are very comparable to something like a Lone Star Grill or a Lang and they are about 75 miles away from me in Modesto CA, but the one I want, this one https://katbbqsmokers.com/product/48x20-reverse-flow-smoker/ is about $2,700 with tax and delivery without the warmingbox, and about $3,400 with tax and delivery for the version with the warming box over the firebox. Either version is an absolute beast and well worth the money, but I'm not comfortable spending that kind of money taking a risk that when it gets here it's too difficult to for me to move in and out of the yard when I need to.

 

[kevin james]

Here's a thought, do you know anyone or have any relatives that live outside the state? If so, arrange to have the Pecos shipped there and have them ship it to you person to person. Also as a side note, I used a Chargriller Offset for years with great results.

No, All of my family is here in California, so that's not an option unfortunately.

 

[kevin james]

I have the Oklahoma Joe Highland with all the mods you spoke of but I added a BBQ guru fan to feed air to the fire box and the whole setup works really great. The one thing you have to keep an eye on is rust on the fire box. Just keep that maintained and you will have a smoker that will last you a long time.

Nice! I actually already own a Fireboard, and I recently bought the drive kit for it and a BBQ Guru Pit Viper fan to use with my WSM 22 (I haven't set it up yet though). I would just need to get the adapter for the Highland and I would have the exact same set up.

So are you able to dial in and hold temps fairly easily? I'm really hoping to dial in and hold temps of 275 for most things, and as low as 180 for Tri - Tip (I like that temp for smoking tri tip to get as much smoke on it as possible until it hits 120 IT before throwing on the weber Kettle to reverse sear it).

Do you have any other mods I didn't mention that you recommend?

Also, with the tuning plate kit, are the temps pretty even across the grate?

Since you have the exact setup I'm looking at including all of the mods.. anything at all you can tell me would be REALLY helpful and I greatly appreciate!

 

[atomicsmoke]

I have the highland with some mods (gaskets, better therm) but no air blower.

Is the reverse flow version. I am happy with it. Other than rust on the firebox mentioned above (which i was aware of before purchasing it) no issues.

I havent tried to keep he temp down to 180. But for my smokes, between 250-300) it was fairly stable.

I assume the air regulator mod would help with temp control

 

[kruizer]

Nice! I actually already own a Fireboard, and I recently bought the drive kit for it and a BBQ Guru Pit Viper fan to use with my WSM 22 (I haven't set it up yet though). I would just need to get the adapter for the Highland and I would have the exact same set up.

So are you able to dial in and hold temps fairly easily? I'm really hoping to dial in and hold temps of 275 for most things, and as low as 180 for Tri - Tip (I like that temp for smoking tri tip to get as much smoke on it as possible until it hits 120 IT before throwing on the weber Kettle to reverse sear it).

Do you have any other mods I didn't mention that you recommend?

Also, with the tuning plate kit, are the temps pretty even across the grate?

Since you have the exact setup I'm looking at including all of the mods.. anything at all you can tell me would be REALLY helpful and I greatly appreciate!

The tuning plates are essential and you will still find as much as 25 degrees plus or minus with the Guru. I have not checked for temps from one end to the other so can't say.

 

[RiversideSm0ker]

Kevin,

I'm also here in California. I own an OKJ Highland and will recommend it to you without hesitation. For me it has served up tremendous BBQ. Nothing has been a real challenge to cook. I did not mod my smoker other than to put a gasket around the cooking chamber door. No sealant or baffle plates. Nothing whatsoever. The grill is about 200lbs and is not light gauge unless you are comparing it to a high end like Horizon, Lang, or Lonestar. 1/4" steel is much better and will retain heat so much better. As you said the weight and cost are factors that have to be considered especially the weight in your case.

This is my case for the OKJ. With no mods I have no problem getting a stable and predictable temp in my cooking chamber (CC) with no extra effort. I primarily use charcoal for heat and wood chunks for smoke due to a lack of an easy to obtain wood source. Where I live we are subject to Santa Ana winds for several months a year. This is the only challenge I have struggled with. By turning my smoker to face North and South with the firebox pointing North I have resolved the issue. I get about a 50 to 75 degree difference across the grates from firebox to the stack side of my smoker. That's really not that bad at all and has never adversely effected my cooks. You can even use this to an advantage when coking different kind of meat. Chicken is better near the firebox along with brats or other sausages. Tri Tip is great closer to the smoke stack. Pork butt can take any temp variance in my experience. As mentioned previously you will have a challenge with the stock finish. I have yet to refinish mine. I have owned it for 2 years now and there is some rust in the areas of the firebox that had the stock paint flake off. I keep my under a cover for the most part so the occasional rain hasn't really caused it too much harm. This is going to be the year I do a full refinish and repaint with a high temp paint. That just a good excuse for me to play with my Dremel. I'm certain that the mods you mentioned will work as advertised but in my own experience, I have not required any of them to produce top not BBQ. And I mean better than most restaurants in my area. The one mod that you mentioned that I would highly recommend would be the charcoal basket. You can get that directly from Char Broil for something like $45. This is the only mod that I regret not doing yet. I am going to rectify that this year though. Currently I use a minion method in the firebox by putting the hot coals in the front corner near the firebox vent. The read of the firebox is filled with unlit coals and a few wood chunks to begin with. I can usually get 2 1/2 to 3 hours of cooking time before I need to reload with fresh charcoal in the reverse direction. It really is very simple to keep an extremely consistent temp if you keep a probe on the grate and monitor your temps that way.

Now all that being said I recently have looked at this new gravity fed Masterbuilt 560 grill. For about $500 you appear to be able to get the ease of a pellet grill with the flavor of charcoal. Looks to be about the same size as the OKJ when you consider the upper shelves but you have the electric fan to dial in a relatively exact temp plus you can grill on that thing. Since the price is about 60% higher than the OKJ but has the added function without the weight that might be something to consider. But if you are really interested in the offset and are only on the fence about the OKJ because you feel that it won't perform I am going to tell you that it will. My first hand experience over the last 2 years allows me to recommend it to you as I said before with full confidence. It is a great cooker that is not that expensive. Feel free to contact me directly if you want any more information that I can provide. Good luck with your decision and purchase.

G

 

[hoity toit]

a lot of the laws in Cali are shallow in reasoning. Good luck on your choice and happy smokin.

HT

 

[HowlingDog]

Hi Kevin,

My first smoker was a super cheap off set from Home Depot on clearance for $100. It was barely thicker than aluminum foil, but with a few mods, I was able to make pretty good stuff.

Not sure where you are located, but I am in SoCal (Orange County) and found some metal supply stores that sell scrap and made what I needed fairly cheap.


I also added ceramic bbq briquettes at the bottom for additional heat retention. Once I learned how to manage the fire, it worked well and eventually passed on to another new bbq'r . Just be patient and you will fine.

 

[kevin james]

So things just got interesting. I heard back from Old Country BBQ Pits who manufactures the Pecos. There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that they can sell me a Pecos directly and the price is the same, $400. The bad news is it would also cost another $400 for them to ship it to me for a door to door total of $800. So I have some serious thinking to do.

On the surface, that just sounds crazy when I can get the OK Joe for $402 out the door with tax, assembly and delivery. But I'm actually thinking pretty hard about it and may just end up going for it for the following reasons:

• The Pecos is slightly thicker metal than the OK Joe. While Academy's site says the barrel is 14 gauge with 11 gauge doors the guy I spoke with at OCBP said the entire unit including the barrel is 11 gauge.
• The Pecos is all welded construction, no bolt on parts and the fire box is all one piece unlike the OK Joe.
• The stack is at grate level and much bigger diameter for better air flow.
• For $400 on the shipping, they are going to enclose it in a full wooden crate, then put it on a pallet and onto the truck, so there are zero concerns over it being damaged in shipping. From a thread I saw on a Brazos that was damaged in shipping, that is NOT how it would be shipped if I could buy directly from Academy, and I would be worried about shipping damage. Academy also charges $150 for shipping, so while this is a little over double the shipping cost, it's also much better packaging and gives enough piece of mind that I would have to think about this option even if I could buy from Academy and save a little cash. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good the smoker is if you can't get it to your door undamaged and I HATE dealing with refusing packages, or settling for something with damage even if it's just minor cosmetic damage.

The one thing that sucks is I really liked some of the mods available for the Highland at BBQsmokermods.com like the expansion rack kit which is not available for the Pecos. While the tuning plate kit is available, it doesn't fit straight from the manufacturer and needs to be modified which sounds like a pain. But with all the mods I would buy for the Highland, the total cost to get it and add all the mods would be $755, including the expansion rack kit, the tuning plate kit, the water pan that goes with the tuning plate kit, and the gasket material. So at that point it would end up costing almost the same as getting the Pecos crated and shipped to me and the Pecos is a better built unit. For the Pecos, I would just end up getting the gasket material since I don't want to deal with modding the tuning plate kit, and they don't have the expansion rack kit available. I would just need to figure something out later to add a second rack and have some tuning plates made.

Decisions decisions.... leaning towards the Pecos though. Apparently it's what Aaron Franklin used in his BBQ with Franklin Youtube video series a few years ago, and if it's good enough for him for a personal back yard rig... I think that's probably enough to sell me on it. I still want the Kat 20x48 eventually though lol.

 

[RiversideSm0ker]

Sounds like you have made your decision. I have heard good things about that cooker. I was super lucky to get my OKJ for a mere $75 brand new in the box from Walmart on clearance. Couldn’t pass that up. It’s the best deal I have ever gotten on anything I have purchased. I really love cooking on my offset. Still intrigued by that new gravity feed from Masterbuilt. With the new Weber Kettle from Christmas there is no way I could justify the purchase though. Whatever you go with I’m sure that you will be satisfied. Every cooker has its quirks. Once you figure them out you are golden.
G