Stick burner in SC

[Mark Adams]

just purchased an OK Joe’s Highland in an effort to create consistent results with the smoker’s “white whale” of brisket. Seasoned the smoker yesterday and am currently working on a few mods to regulate temp. What seems to be an acceptable temp range for most? (I’m aiming for 275 so I assumed letting it dip to 255ish and spiking no higher than 300)
Thoughts?

 

[dcecil]

Sounds like you have it dialed in. There’s going to be swings with a stick burner. Best advice I could offer and this is only my opinion is stabilize your temp with a nice bed of coals before you put your meat on. Add less wood more often so you don’t have the big flare ups which comes along with sticking to much or to big of a piece in there at one time. With a little fine tuning and proper monitoring with a good therm you should be good to go

 

[Mark Adams]

Thanks! So far I’ve added an elbow to the inside of smoke stack that extends it to just above the grill surface and plan to get a new thermometer, firebox baffle and lavalock sealer for the doors. Are there any mods I’m missing?

 

[dcecil]

Looks like you have it covered. There are a lot of OK joe owners here that will probably jump and share there experiences.

 

[gmc2003]

My only suggestion would be go slow on the mod's. Use your smoker a few times to see if you really need the mod's. Unless of course your a mod junky. Just like meat no two smokers are exactly the same and what one may need another may not.

Chris.

 

[Mark Adams]

Cheated a little today, started with some kindling and charcoal for a base. It cut the coal time by about an hour or more. After I got the nice bed going, I realized my splits were way too big as one would bring the temp from 240 to 340, and that was after I shut the damper and stack a couple different times. Thank goodness this was a trial run and I wasn’t cooking anything but wood and time.

 

[gary s]

Good morning and welcome to the forum from a beautiful sunny day here in East Texas, and the best site on the web. Lots of great people with tons of information on just about everything.

Gary