Vertical cabinet smoker dirty

[mattroth54]

Hello!

I’ve had a BQ Grills vertical cabinet smoker for about a year now. It is an add-on to a pair of big green egg XL‘s. I use all of these to cook mass quantities of pulled pork for scout fundraisers. I have cooked thousands of pounds of pork on the eggs so running a charcoal pit is not a new thing to me.

That said this vertical smoker seems to be very different beast. I cannot seem to strike a balance between keeping the temperature up versus enough airflow to maintain clean smoke.

This this is not nearly as much of a problem when the smoker is not fully loaded. Full load is 16 butts, 4 on 4 shelves. The smoker is made for this quantity of pork so I’d hate to have to cook less on it. I run a bbq guru fan and run charcoal briquettes, both recommendations from BQ grills.

With the top vent closed down fairly tight, the heat stays in, but the smoke is filthy because there’s not enough air flow. With the vent more open to get adequate airflow the temperature will not stay up. The fan blows so much air that the charcoal supply is exhausted within a few hours.

When running full loads in my big green eggs, I’ve never had this trouble. It does seem there is an excessive amount of moisture buildup in the cabinet again especially with a full load.

I do use lump charcoal in my green eggs and wonder if that might help help with this. Any other ideas running this otherwise awesome smoker?

 

[mattroth54]

Wish I could get this thing dialed in!

 

[BigW.]

Looks like they make nice smokers. They would be best for help since they design their smokers. I had not heard about them let alone know using them to help. Other than keep top vent open and keep feeding the briquettes:)

 

[chef k-dude]

Doesn't appear to be any instructions on the site but they are a unicorn that actually has a phone number and a direct email address right on the front page of the site. I would contact them. It's rare a company actually wants to directly communicate with customers these days.

 

[millerbuilds]

Looks like they make nice smokers. They would be best for help since they design their smokers. I had not heard about them let alone know using them to help. Other than keep top vent open and keep feeding the briquettes:)

Doesn't appear to be any instructions on the site but they are a unicorn that actually has a phone number and a direct email address right on the front page of the site. I would contact them. It's rare a company actually wants to directly communicate with customers these days.

I agree, reach out to the manufacture for help.

- Jason

 

[WillRunForQue]

I have a similar vertical cabinet. Minion method always ended with dirty smoke. I only use lit coals and chunks from a chimney starter now. Top vents fully open. It means some temperature fluctuations and reloading every 90 minutes or so, but it's great clean smoke and that timing isn't bad for babysitting it. The capacity is amazing.

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

Closing the top vent to keep the heat in doesn't work. You want more airflow to ignite more coals to keep the heat up. Minion method will work fine. You are just cutting the airflow down too much. Open up top and bottom vents more to get higher temps.

 

[mike243]

The meat is a huge heat sink from the get go, as the temp comes up the charcoal usage should go down as the meat temps raise. it takes a certain amount of coals to cook a lot of meat and the chocking the top vent might help charcoal usage at the expense of dirty smoke, it's a trade off and only you can decide how you want to run it, hopefully you can strike a even balance you can live with.