smoker will not heat what the heck

[scmelik]

I hoping that you all can help out.  I am trying to smoke up some short ribs and my smoker has been going for almost 2 hours now and I cannot get it up to temp.  I have gone through three full chimneys of coals and I hit about 170 on my maverick and it will not go higher.  I have never had so much charcoal in a smoker before and it just won't get hot.  This is only the third time I have used this smoker and I have had the same problem every single time.  I have check the therm and it works just fine in my other smoker and my dads smokers so I know its not a therm problem.

 

[ironhorse07]

What kind of smoker? Pics?

 

[scmelik]

What kind of smoker? Pics?

its a brinkman smokin pit.  I have done the mods to it with the oven seal, baffle, tuning plates, raised the coal bed so it gets better airflow.  It will just not get hot.  I just added yet another chimney full of hot coals and it seems like that once they go into the side box it cools off immediately.  You can see the heat radiating off of the firebox but for some reason its not transfering to the cooking chamber.

 

[ironhorse07]

Sounds to me your not drafting through the smoker. Chimney plugged or restricted.

 

[scmelik]

Sounds to me your not drafting through the smoker. Chimney plugged or restricted.

no its clear.  Turns out that for some reason I was getting alot of insulation from the potatoe I was using to hold my therm.  Took it out of the potatoe and just let it dangle and it almost immediately went up to 215.