Wow, what a weekend. I finally had the opportunity to cook with this little guy over two days.
I have to say, I'm kind of up in the air about how I feel about this smoker. I think if anything, I'll start with the good news, which is basically that the food I cooked up came out well and cooked to temp based on time (12-13 hours).
So now the negative.
It's sealed up pretty darn tight (as I mentioned, I checked out what people had been saying about this smoker and the mods). There's a couple of tiny leaks at the Cooking chamber handle and thermometer, but small enough to be pretty negligible. If the thermometers are to be believed (using the thermometer that came with the unit, tested by sticking the probe side in boiling water (using chopsticks to hold it over), it's accurate, and my weber i-grill as ambient)... Fully stoked firebox, never really consistently got above 200 most of the time. Halfway through the cook, I was inspecting the fire and noticing that opening the door causes ignition (even with fully open vents), and noticed the ash-tray is definitely blocking airflow. Pulling that out, I started to see a bit more heat coming in to the chamber and hitting a somewhat steady 218-220 (measured via i-grill on lowest rack, ambient), but still not really where I want to be. Cracking the firebox door slightly did help to bring in a bit more air in and get that temp up, but obviously not a viable solution long term.
Some of this is still a bit questionable regarding my methods, as I noticed slightly better temps as my water tray became less full, and acting more as a baffle than an insulator, but without and while empty (during seasoning) I had seen temps range from 230 to almost 300 in different areas of the box, so as you can probably imagine it was reasonable to assume a baffle was/is needed, and waterpan is semi questionable (perhaps I need to use a smaller water pan just for moisture).
If anything, the one thing I want to kind of let people know as a review about this unit, is that if you're looking for a cheap smoker to try your hand with, I don't think this is the one. Time and material cost alone, this unit probably cost more than something in the 250-300$ range, once I'm able to get it consistently working as intended. As an apartment dweller, for me, I don't have the tools or space to cut metal reasonably or hardcore mod this little guy to really dial it in (like cutting the bottom of the firebox to move the ash tray, which I need to do now) or cut larger holes to get more air into the firebox.
I think if you're just starting out, a Weber Grill is probably a good bet (because I have to assume you have one or another grill already), but if you want to step up your game and quantity of items you're cooking give this one a pass. I don't think it's bad or horrible, it just takes a lot more than expected to get results (even when you're prepared by reading others' experiences).
Pics!
The first two are from my first experimental run with a roughly 6.5lbs pork butt. Only registered around 160 before I pulled it off the grill ( it was late and I'd had enough for the day), but still fully cooked and pretty delicious. Smoked with Spent bourbon barrel (oak i'm sure) and cherry, with charcoal briquettes.
The second two photos are from Sunday, around 10lbs and 8lbs butts (this is about halfway through cooking, no photos of the finished larger one... yet). The second photo is of the smaller one, fairly fresh out of the smoker, with the bone pulled right out, no fuss. Good and huge smoke ring, moist and shredded up really well. Cooked with lump charcoal, and a 70/30 mix of Bourbon barrel chunks and cherrywood. Lump charcoal is definitely better in this smoker.
A good reason why I'm so mixed about this smoker. The result was good, but the inconsistency of it's function is hard to swallow, and I could have had the same results on my
weber kettle grill with less fuel (I went through 4 bags this weekend just for these results. That seems really excessive. Maybe someone can enlighten me if that was their experience with this as well over a 12-14 hour period.
Cheers guys!