# Brinkman Vertical Split Door Mods (new member)



## mcgregormx (Jul 2, 2012)

Hey Everyone,

It's my first post on here, so forgive any "repeats". I did a few searches for mods on Brinkman smokers and found a bunch of great advice! After all the searches I have completed the first set of mods to my Brinkman smoker. Here they are:

1. Purchased a "grilling wok" from Amazon, it was ~$12 shipped. I use it as the charcoal pan.

2. Bought some BGE felt tape from Amazon, it was ~$18 shipped. I used it to seal the firebox door and smoker door.

Here are a few pictures of my smoker with the mods (I cured it before adding the felt seal):














And before the Mods (curing process):













I'm really excited to get into smoking and as of this posting have only done a set of whole chickens. I will be using this smoker for the first time over independence day (trying my hand at a long smoke doing some Boston Butts)! Since the pictures were taken I have purchased additional cement pavers to make sure I don't get any lit coal onto the wood deck, $5 per paver is much cheaper than building a new house, also you can note I soak the entire deck before starting, I may just be paranoid, but I'd rather like to avoid a fire, especially where I live, since the whole state appears to be burning.

As a new member I am interested to know if anyone else has done additional mods to the Brinkman vertical smoker that I should be aware of and implement. Also, any suggestions and how-to's you want to include, feel free to do so! I'm looking forward to all the great advice and suggestions on the forums!


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## sscrib (Jul 2, 2012)

Great job. I don't have this smoker, but I have tried using a wok as a charcoal pan before and found that the holes don't allow ash to fall through or air to come in very well. I had to shake the wok constantly for ash to fall through. It was very frustrating. Hope your experience is better than mine.


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## mcgregormx (Jul 3, 2012)

Since tonight (technically 2 AM on Independence day) will be my first real smoke with this smoker I don't have any long-term experience with the ash issues. I didn't have any while curing it, but that could also be attributed to the amount of coals I was using (30) at the time. The good news is that this smoker kept a constant temp of about 350 degrees with only 30 coals (for about an hour). I plan on only using 15 and a minion method burn for the actual cook. I bought the thermometer that has an alarm when the temps get below, or above, a certain range, so hopefully I'm not in for a long night!


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## john doe iii (Jul 5, 2012)

I have the same smoker... for the price, and after a few mods, I LOVE IT!

I did the same thing you did except my grilling wok is the kind with square holes through out the wok... it does a better job with the ash falling through.

The only other thing i did was bought a square piece of thin metal and removed the temp gauge that came with the smoker (the gauge is horrible and off a lot). I installed the piece inside the smoker and sealed it with high temp silicone... painted it black and drilled a hole in the middle to accomodate my new temp gauge 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





This unit takes little charcoal to keep at 225... I start with about 1/3 of a chimney.


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## moonratt (Jul 8, 2012)

I have the same box..works fine. I like the "wok" I can see where that could be an improvement...good info

smoke on!!


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## smokeymike89 (Jul 9, 2012)

Well, I bought this smoker last week and had a maiden run with it yesterday doing some St. Louis style ribs. Before I started I modded the charcoal pan by drilling some holes in it. I don't think I drilled enough holes because I had a terrible time getting the temp to be consistent. It went anywhere from 220 down to 170's-180's. Needless to say I will be buying a grilling wok today. I too noticed that the stock temp gauge is off by about 30 degrees. I bought a digital temp gauge with a remote probe and it seemed to work pretty well in telling me that my temps were too low. Throughout the smoking process I noticed that as the water pan lost water, the temps went up which is pretty much a no brainer. What I had thought about after the fact was if sand was a better temp. regulator than water...does anyone have info as to how these two compare?

    I'm hoping that once I replace the charcoal basket with the grilling wok I will have better temp. results. Granted I am still learning, I was a bit disappointed with my 1st run. I also came to a conclusioin that as the charcoal and wood burned off, the center of the charcoal pan seemed to get clogged up and pretty dense with ash and wood. Once I stirred up the pan a bit, the temps went up, so hopefully again the grilling wok will help.

    I ran it with both bottom vents as well as the top right vent wide open. I'm not sure this was the best way to run it, but I was trying to get the temps up to 225, with zero success. Any ideas or suggestions on this area will be greatly appreciated. As for the ribs I had to finish them in the oven and they turned out ok, but they could have been better IMO. Oh, and I was using natural lump charcoal and the minion method for my fire.


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## mcgregormx (Jul 10, 2012)

Well, the smoke went well! I smoked 2x 8 lb pork shoulders (boston butt) and 2 whole chickens, which were about 6 lbs each. Started at 2 AM and around 5 AM I was up adding more coal to the fire box. I believe the charcoal wasn't quite as good as some of the slower burning briquettes (I used Stubbs Charcoal, that I picked up from Lowes). I did the minion method and was surprised to see how well the Ash just fell through the wok holes. I did have to shake it every now and then, but that was when the coal was almost gone, and a re-fill was necessary anyway. Total cook took me about 16 hours, mostly due to everyone opening the top set of doors to see the pork shoulders and chicken. I also attribute extra time to it being my first smoke on this unit, and fiddling with temperatures took a few hours to get used to. Once I got it to a steady 230, it chugged right along! Not to say that I didn't have to continue monitoring the temps, but it held above 225 for at least 2.5 hours before needing any real attention. The felt mod I did started to fall off near the hinge locations of the doors, I currently just have them pulled off, and noticed I lost a bit of heat and smoke through it, but nothing that is that big of an issue. Maybe some day I will take the doors off and seal up that portion, then again...maybe not.

Overall, I highly recommend this smoker for a first time bbq'er or even a veteran, this is a great little unit that won't set you back too much money, even with the mods!

Here are a couple of Que View Pictures. The first image is before I put the chicken in. I am using a cheap foil pan for water (in this case apple juice) that I picked up at Sams Club (about $10 for 30 of them), made clean-up easy! I am also using a wireless dual zone thermometer by Maverick.













I ended up rearranging everything after I realized the chickens were touching the door. This smoker could have easily held another chicken (in half), and possibly 2 more.

Here is a list of items I bought along with the smoker that I felt would make the job easier.





Here are the 2 mod items I have:


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EF1SCO/?tag=smokingmeatforums-20


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## sscrib (Jul 10, 2012)

Looks good. Well done.


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## mcgregormx (Jul 10, 2012)

sscrib said:


> Looks good. Well done.


Thanks! The wife liked it so much that we are going to do another chicken smoke at the end of this month (24th of July, it's a state holiday in UT). I should also mention that the chicken only took about 5 hours on this smoker at 230. The other smoker I have (ECB) took nearly 7 hours, due to the charcoal smothering itself. If I were to smoke the chicken at 290-300 (that temp is unfortunately easy to hit on this smoker), I could probably finish it in about 4 hours.


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## moonratt (Jul 10, 2012)

Good looking butts...


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## mcgregormx (Jul 10, 2012)

moonratt said:


> Good looking butts...


Thanks! That picture is at ~11 hours. Wish I had discovered the art of smoking meat a long time ago!


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## mcgregormx (Dec 29, 2015)

Well, after three years of owning this smoker, I have decided to retire it. Oddly, I've been debating with myself on going to a bigger smoker, or any other smoker for that matter, because after about 50+ smokes on this thing, I know it really well. I even stuck to using Stubbs charcoal, and got it to hold temps at 225 for 4+ hours. The wife basically asked me if I wanted a new smoker for Christmas, and I reluctantly said yes. So the new smoker is the Smoke Hollow 44 from Sams Club, still a vertical smoker, but it's a little bit on the "cheating" side, since it's fueled by propane. As much as I think I'm going to miss the charcoal, I think the propane will make the overall process simpler, and with 2 little kids (19 months and 3 months) I need all the time I can get! I do see myself going back to charcoal in the long run, but that won't be until the kids are less chaotic (so, 25 years from now). Here is a shot of the newly put together smoker! Sorry if I'm offending the purists with my gas smoker :D.













IMG_20151229_003248.jpg



__ mcgregormx
__ Dec 29, 2015


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