I love the smoker it works great for me, it uses a bit more fuel than I expected but that's ok. I'm thinking about investing in the pitmaster IQ120. I've done a few racks of ribs that turned out perfect, a few pork butts and a brisket and they all turned out great. The only issue that I have is taking it to higher temps above 275, which isn't a huge deal cause I do everything low and slow. But the gasket system and the door latches sealed it up wonderfully, haven't had any problems with leaks or anything
When I was curing mine, I got it up to ~500F by fully opening both vents and opening the the firebox lid. I left both vents open and only opened the firebox lid for about a minute at a time. But it shot up there out of the box with no gaskets or modifications. Hope this helps.
if you open the firebox door it climbs up pretty good, im doing research now on one of the pitmaster IQ110-120, im thinking with something designed to control temperature maybe it could get it up there. guess we will just have to wait and find out
LOL I am glad to see you posted this cause I was reading your post and was like ummm I may have only been smoking for about two years but that sounds like it would defeat the purpose of smoking
and by the fire box door i dont mean the lid i mean the cleanout door
So, now I'm wondering what the benefits of this modification are. Is the purpose to hold the coals/wood higher in the firebox so more air can get in?I went to Home Depot and bought a 24x24 sheet of expanded metal it was like 18 bucks. You can search on here or go to youtube and search "charcoal basket no welding" and a pretty good video comes up