As far as the amount of charcoal I used when I did my last test run I used 1 chimney's worth of charcoal then immediately started another, dumped it then started another and dumped it. The coal holder was completely full. I do not recall what the temp was initial with one chimney but with two it was at 200'ish and the third chimney did not make a difference. I then threw in a couple of handfuls of dry wood chips which flamed up and the temp got up to 250'ish maybe a little more but quickly died back down to 200'ish. This is practically the same result before I did all the modifications.
1ST pic: two new temp gages
3RD pic: dryer vent and seal going around edges where door meets. I didn't do back because it didn't look like it would work too well. I did get a lot of smoke (heat) escaping from here but I used foil to plug it up and it worked pretty well.
4TH pic: I had a lot of gaps in the football area, I think it and the firebox got tweaked a bit when I moved. I filled them all in as well as all other manufactured holes throughout the grill with a high temp chimney sealant. You can see in the pic some spots where the sealant (gray) got hot and flacked away but the sealant between the two components (grill and FB) is still intact and is doing its job. I had removed the FB cleaned it up, got new hardware, put a bead of sealant around the football and all fastener holes, torqued the hardware down and then ran a bead from the outside as well.
6TH pic: an after market coal holder I bought. Initially I had it in this position down low w/ the coal holder in the grill flipped over and used as a baffle. I could not get the temp past 200. I had the baffle down low as well.
7TH pic: coal holder placed higher up and used no baffle on my 2nd test run that I described in my first paragraph which only got be again to about 200. During both test runs the vent and the smokestack were wide open. With the coal holder up high on the grates there was a gap where the FB door could not close all the way (8TH pic) which I didn't think was too big of a deal because it would let more air in. I had bought some threaded rods to run through the FB and suspended the coal holder a bit lower so the door could close all the way but I don't think it would make too much of a difference. The FB door is kind of tweaked a bit too. I installed a seal around it as well and it has helped but I do lose some smoke (heat) at the FB as well. But it should not be enough to not let the cooking chamber get up to temp with the vent and smoke stack open imo.
So I guess the next step is suspended the coal holder a bit so the FB door can close and maybe remove the dryer vent. That's all I can really think of.
I really like this grill, its sturdy and large, but this is ridiculous. They only other smoker I have used was a cheppo small knock-off brand from wallyworld and it worked well for me never had a problem smoking meats in it.
Anything else you can think of that might help? Again I appreciate the assistance.
Jason
