I bought some Royal Oak chunk charcoal. This does make a difference. Not only hotter but I only used 10 lbs of charcoal for a 6 to 7 hour smoke instead of the 20 plus pounds with brickets. However only once did I close the damper on the fire box, only part way and only for about 10 minutes. Otherwise both stack and air inlet full open and a lot of times I opened the firebox door to keep temps up.
So to get this poorly designed piece of crap to work I have:
Added deflector and baffels
Built a charcoal box
Raised the firebox above the air inlet door
Extended the chimney to grate level
Sealed back and both sides of the cooking chamber with stove rope
Sealent around the fire box door
Added fire bricks in the cooking chamber
Burn chunk charcoal only, not brickets,
Still the temps are marginal. I can hold 225 pretty well but to hold 250 takes work and anything over is not practical . (from what I have learned thus far I probably won't need over 250)
I did salmon and 3-2-1 ribs Sunday, both were excellent!!!
Some great stuff on this site for smoking a lot of good food! It's been a lot of work and extra money to get this BRINKMANN Smoke N Pit to work but the salmon and ribs kind of made me forget how frustrating it was.
STILL NO ONE HAS SAID THEY GOT THIS MODEL TO WORK OUT OF THE BOX. i am really enjoying smoking but I would not recommend a Brinkmann for anyone looking for a smoker, at least not this model.
Roy
So to get this poorly designed piece of crap to work I have:
Added deflector and baffels
Built a charcoal box
Raised the firebox above the air inlet door
Extended the chimney to grate level
Sealed back and both sides of the cooking chamber with stove rope
Sealent around the fire box door
Added fire bricks in the cooking chamber
Burn chunk charcoal only, not brickets,
Still the temps are marginal. I can hold 225 pretty well but to hold 250 takes work and anything over is not practical . (from what I have learned thus far I probably won't need over 250)
I did salmon and 3-2-1 ribs Sunday, both were excellent!!!
Some great stuff on this site for smoking a lot of good food! It's been a lot of work and extra money to get this BRINKMANN Smoke N Pit to work but the salmon and ribs kind of made me forget how frustrating it was.
STILL NO ONE HAS SAID THEY GOT THIS MODEL TO WORK OUT OF THE BOX. i am really enjoying smoking but I would not recommend a Brinkmann for anyone looking for a smoker, at least not this model.
Roy