- Apr 13, 2016
- 32
- 10
Well I bought a CHEAP smoker online. A bolt together 18g "smoker". Now I have no dilusions that this smoker will be easy to work with or produce the best quality cook. But it is my little expirment to see if I want to drop a couple thousand on a good smoker. So here is my story.
MONDAY: smoker arrived in the mail. I put it together. Installed an after market temp gauge on it. Seasoned it for 2 hrs while inspecting it and practicing adjusting temp and adding wood. I decided the fore box had to many leaks to acuratly adjust temp.
TUESDAY: welded up all bolt flanges and fixed the damper so it didn't leak.
Next I decided to cook some bacon wrapped chicken. I got the fire box going. Thin blue flame. Holding steady at 250. Threw on the chicken in the middle of the grill. One hour latter I rotated and moved around the checken, also adding another small piece of wood to hold temp. 40 minutes after that I check the internal temp. It read 125f. So I cooked it another 30 minutes. It only went up 10 degrees. Moved the chicken closer to the fire box for 30 minutes, and bumped the heat up to 300 And it went up to 155. 15 minutes after that it was done. But it tasted like biting into charcoal. I was very disappointed.
Today I will make a plate in the grill box to disperse the heat more evenly, and use three oven thermometers across the grill to check for acuracy of my outside therm and to dial in the plate to disperse heat. Does anyone else have any tips or suggestions to add.
By the way I used misqite charcoal and some year old aged oak I had left over from winter.
MONDAY: smoker arrived in the mail. I put it together. Installed an after market temp gauge on it. Seasoned it for 2 hrs while inspecting it and practicing adjusting temp and adding wood. I decided the fore box had to many leaks to acuratly adjust temp.
TUESDAY: welded up all bolt flanges and fixed the damper so it didn't leak.
Next I decided to cook some bacon wrapped chicken. I got the fire box going. Thin blue flame. Holding steady at 250. Threw on the chicken in the middle of the grill. One hour latter I rotated and moved around the checken, also adding another small piece of wood to hold temp. 40 minutes after that I check the internal temp. It read 125f. So I cooked it another 30 minutes. It only went up 10 degrees. Moved the chicken closer to the fire box for 30 minutes, and bumped the heat up to 300 And it went up to 155. 15 minutes after that it was done. But it tasted like biting into charcoal. I was very disappointed.
Today I will make a plate in the grill box to disperse the heat more evenly, and use three oven thermometers across the grill to check for acuracy of my outside therm and to dial in the plate to disperse heat. Does anyone else have any tips or suggestions to add.
By the way I used misqite charcoal and some year old aged oak I had left over from winter.
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