Hello all. Super new to smoking and need some tips.

[nihilist805]

I am so glad I found this forum.

I just got a smoker about a month ago. It's a charbroil 40" with a good size hot box. I tried smoking a few things already. I recently tried smoking a 4 lb pork butt.

The biggest problem I have run into so far is maintaining temperature. What happened is, my temperature would fall, then I would add coal. The temperature would go up a bit but I could never get it back to where it was when I started. At the end of 6 hours My hot box was full of used coal but my temp stayed low. I had to finish my pork in the oven :(

Any tips would help

Thanks guys.

 

[venture]

First question would be how you are measuring your pit temps?  Stock therms often don't work well.  A wired probe therm will tell you exactly what is going on in the pit.

If temps fail to come back up to the original level, sounds like your coals might be smothering in ash.  A fire basket would help with that and keep the coals out of the ash?

My Chargriller with mods only requires fire tending about every 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Pretty typical for offsets.

To give you some ideas for modifications to an offset smoker:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/58778/char-griller-smokin-pro-with-firebox-mods

Many pages of info there, and I wouldn't recommend every mod you see, but lots of info to give you some ideas?

Not your smoker, and any measurements obviously will not translate to your unit.  The concepts will work with most any offset horizontal unit, though.

Good luck and good smoking.