Brinkmann Smoke N Pit low temps, too much charcoal

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I have two Brinkman box smokers and am having terrible trouble keeping my temp. up one holds a barley 200 and the other holds around 200 on  temp gauge.  I have tried to adjust the dampers to raise the temp and I am UN-ABLE to raise the Temp. I tried adding more charcoal even added large chucks of smoking wood DRY!!! Can you give me any cures to this problem.  I feel that the both doors dont seal and the heat is coming out of the doors but I may be wrong.  Can anyone provide a CURE!! Thanks
I started on a Brinkmen box smoker, first thing I did was get a tube of high temp silicon, clean the surface of the door seal with a wire brush, i layed it on it's back I used. 2 1/8 drill bits on the sealing surface closed the door and adjusted the latch to hold the solid, open it back up and put tape around the outside of the box for easy clean up later. Coat the door with a heavy coat of bacon grease and on the box sealing surface put a heavy bead of high temp silicon and close the door and latch it the leave it alone long enough for it to cure, stand it back up and open it, you should have a very nice door seal now, remove the nails as the can be used for temp probe wires now, if it leaks at all now just tighten the latch a little and it shouldn't leak anymore, mine didnt
 
I forgot to mention that I took the elbow that I had off and threw it away. It made no significant difference. I use a couple of digital thermometers to monitor the ends of the smoke chamber. I also take the basket out when grilling but I also have a 14 inch weber that sits on the table if I I'm just doing steaks. The little weber also comes in handy for getting some replacement coals ready for basket. When using your basket put some unlit coals and wood chunks on the bottom and put your hot coals on top not many or it will get away from you (it's called the "Minion Method"). That's where the little weber or any small cheap table top grill comes in handy. And don't forget the fireplace shovel for handling hot coals. And you can see my little garden rake in the picture. It's great for snatching hot grills off the smoker or just sliding them around and stirring coals too.



Yea I know, like the guy that sells the high dollar baffles sez...I'm full of it!!!

Sparkie
There is a picture in one of these posts where a guy used 1/4 in steal to make a diverter plate for the fire end, I did that as well then I got 1/4 x 2 x 14.5 in bars to line the bottom rail, then I took a cookie sheet and cut it to fit the diameter of the exhaust end all the way to the grill, it makes a big difference if your door is sealed the heat has to go under the bottom of the baffle I made on the exhaust side and being the full width I don't have a cold spot, still messin with the spacing of the steel. Bars but I love it so far and less than 50$ in material
 
I've been using my Brinkman SnP for several years and have no problems getting proper temps; both in stock mode or after I installed several mods (firebox baffle, pavers in the bottom of cook chamber, raising the firebox grate, multiple thermos).  I usually need to close the firebox vent down to about 1/4 open (with stack wide open) to keep temps down in the cook chamber. I use Kingsford blue and some small chunks of oak or hickory for fuel.  When new, I was able to season at high temp with no problem.  Not sure why others in this thread cannot get higher temps????  Artic zip codes maybe?? :-)    
 
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