As I posted in another thread last week, I got this smoker for Christmas. It's an SFB made of 1/4" steel. It's cooking chamber is 30" long by 19" in diameter. The firebox is the same diameter and 20" long. It has a good tall stack made of 1/8" thick steel with a damper/cap. The main cooking grate is at the center of the diameter of the tube. There is a 7" grate up near the top. It has a baffle supplied and welded in place; but there are no dial gauge thermometers, and I've not yet had any tuning plates cut. I'll add those and some River Country thermos later after I've learned a bit more about this smoker. If you have advice about what River Country thermo probe lengths to buy and where to place the gauges, I'd be much obliged to hear from you. Price is an issue because I'm retired and poor.
It's been a week; so tomorrow I plan to season it and learn as much as I can about how it heats and how to maintain temps in a stick burner, something I've never done before. I thought I'd lay out my plan here and seek input from all you more experienced stick burners.
First, I'll remove all the racks and grates and wipe the inside down good. Then I'll spray everything inside, top and bottom, with canola oil, including the firebox before replacing the racks. Then I plan to place some digital thermometer probes in blocks of 2x4 in different places . . . at the center of the main cooking grate above the baffle edge and another above it on the top grate and one on the main grate near the stack and another above it on the upper grate. I would think that 4 readings in a 30" chamber would be as many as I need, but if you think I should use others, please advise. I plan to take readings at the start of the fire and hourly after that for as long as I can keep it up. I'll use an IR thermo to read inside the firebox and to read outside temps.
On the digital thermos, I have a Maverick 732 and will use the CC probe on it. The others are single probe units designed to measure food temps, but I can't see that using them in blocks of wood to read chamber temps would be a problem. PLEASE! If you see a problem using food probes as described, please tell me before I ruin 3 thermos and probes. PLEASE! The others are a mixed lot. I've never calibrated them; so it's possible that they all read differently or have different characteristics reading the same temp. I plan to shift them around every couple of hours to see if changing locations will give similar or significantly different readings for each unit. I'll also use the IR when I do the moving around to read inside temps on the CC walls. If I don't have the lid open too long, I think I'll get readings relatively close to the air temps because the steel is 1/4" thick. We'll see.
After the initial thermo set up and recording their readings, I'll light a fire with a chimney of KBB nice and red and frosty to make a coals bed. Then I'll add a stick at a time and watch how the stick burns and add more as the sticks burn and the temps change. If I see drops on the probed units, I plan to add more sticks. I plan to record thermo readings hourly and take pics of the fire. This leads me to my next issue, how high to raise the heat on a seasoning burn. I've read different things and most seemed like personal opinions not backed with information that I understood. I'd first like to see if I can hit 225° and hold a range between there and 275° for awhile. That's where I have done most of my smokes on my Webers. The question is how high to heat the initial burn. I'd be much obliged for your wise counsel on seasoning heats. Also, how long should I continue the fire. Will 3 or 4 hours be enough or should I shoot for longer. I'll probably run it longer just to see if I can learn how damper and firebox lid opening affect CC heat. The BIG QUESTION is what is the max temp I should try to reach and how long should I hold it. There will be no food in the smoker on this burn.
That demonstrates the extent of my knowledge and my ignorance. As you can see the former is not at all significant but the latter is great. Anything you can tell me to insure a successful seasoning and for me to learn as much as I can about how Brazos responds will be very much appreciated.
It's been a week; so tomorrow I plan to season it and learn as much as I can about how it heats and how to maintain temps in a stick burner, something I've never done before. I thought I'd lay out my plan here and seek input from all you more experienced stick burners.
First, I'll remove all the racks and grates and wipe the inside down good. Then I'll spray everything inside, top and bottom, with canola oil, including the firebox before replacing the racks. Then I plan to place some digital thermometer probes in blocks of 2x4 in different places . . . at the center of the main cooking grate above the baffle edge and another above it on the top grate and one on the main grate near the stack and another above it on the upper grate. I would think that 4 readings in a 30" chamber would be as many as I need, but if you think I should use others, please advise. I plan to take readings at the start of the fire and hourly after that for as long as I can keep it up. I'll use an IR thermo to read inside the firebox and to read outside temps.
On the digital thermos, I have a Maverick 732 and will use the CC probe on it. The others are single probe units designed to measure food temps, but I can't see that using them in blocks of wood to read chamber temps would be a problem. PLEASE! If you see a problem using food probes as described, please tell me before I ruin 3 thermos and probes. PLEASE! The others are a mixed lot. I've never calibrated them; so it's possible that they all read differently or have different characteristics reading the same temp. I plan to shift them around every couple of hours to see if changing locations will give similar or significantly different readings for each unit. I'll also use the IR when I do the moving around to read inside temps on the CC walls. If I don't have the lid open too long, I think I'll get readings relatively close to the air temps because the steel is 1/4" thick. We'll see.
After the initial thermo set up and recording their readings, I'll light a fire with a chimney of KBB nice and red and frosty to make a coals bed. Then I'll add a stick at a time and watch how the stick burns and add more as the sticks burn and the temps change. If I see drops on the probed units, I plan to add more sticks. I plan to record thermo readings hourly and take pics of the fire. This leads me to my next issue, how high to raise the heat on a seasoning burn. I've read different things and most seemed like personal opinions not backed with information that I understood. I'd first like to see if I can hit 225° and hold a range between there and 275° for awhile. That's where I have done most of my smokes on my Webers. The question is how high to heat the initial burn. I'd be much obliged for your wise counsel on seasoning heats. Also, how long should I continue the fire. Will 3 or 4 hours be enough or should I shoot for longer. I'll probably run it longer just to see if I can learn how damper and firebox lid opening affect CC heat. The BIG QUESTION is what is the max temp I should try to reach and how long should I hold it. There will be no food in the smoker on this burn.
That demonstrates the extent of my knowledge and my ignorance. As you can see the former is not at all significant but the latter is great. Anything you can tell me to insure a successful seasoning and for me to learn as much as I can about how Brazos responds will be very much appreciated.
Last edited:
