My Inherited Smoker;advice needed

[MrsB]

Sorry about pic size, can't seem to get it smaller

So this is the smoker my b-i-l built and I ended up with (yay for me just wish it was under different circumstances :( )
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I don't know if you can see in there but there are two tuning plates (?) and I am still trying to figure out how those are really supposed to work. Thats the first advice I need.Should they all be together, separated, do I need more? My temps vary from one end to the other by more than 100* As you can see the lid is entirely too heavy and I have to use that piece of wood to hold it open
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Inside the firebox. Huge. Too big? I have had to start smaller fires to keep temps low. I was kind of hoping to be able to fill the charcoal basket full so I could do loooonnnngggg smokes with less fire maintenance.
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And one of the problems with door for firebox. Don't know if you can tell, but the bottom lip of door has become warped and bends down. Cannot shut fire box door like this, have to use a large clamp to keep it tight. I believe ALOT of air gets in here and why I have to build smaller fires.
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So there it is. I do believe my husband can do any modifications necessary. Just not exactly sure where to start. So I bow down to all you smoke gurus and plead for you to lead me in the right direction.

Thanks for looking!

[Squirrel]

Neat looking smoker Mrs. B. I don't have a clue but I'm sure one of the smart boys will be along any minute.

[Slanted88]

Hang tight! One of them fabricator's will get ya on the high side! Pic's hard on me eye's...

[Meat Hunter]

Dang Mrs.B, I can't really make out but just a couple of the pics. I can't see the one with the tuning plates in it. 100 degrees difference is a bit steep. How big are the plates? How long is that cooking area?

If you were to try charcoal, you would want to make sure that the warp thing is addressed or your charcoal is gonna go up quick. From what I can see, it looks like a decent smoker and anything can be made to work provided it's done the right way.

What do you use for a photo hosting site? I know many here despise photobucket, it can be slow but that's all I use. Even though I curse it ever time I do LOL.

My first smoker was a stick burner that I built. Didn't know what the hell I was doing, just winged it. Turned out ugly as sin but works like a champ. It took me a long time to learn how to control that fire, but once I did, it was easy. All my fires in it were fairly small, not roaring blazes.

So many things come into play with a stick burner. Type of wood, how dry it is, how big the pieces are, is it raw wood or preburnt, draft control ect. It's an art form really, being able to take something that wants to have free reign and taming it to the way you want it.

[HawgHeaven]

Mrs. B, that's a cool looking unit for sure! Wow... yeah, 100 degrees from end to end is a lot. And that fire box looks a tad largish for the cooking area, but as you mentioned, you don't need to build a huge fire.

Kinda hard to tell what's going on in the cooking chamber... maybe a pic or two with the grates removed would help. If there are tuning plates, they are adjustable and are meant to distribute the heat more evenly across the grates. A bit tricky, but you should be able to do better than 100 degree difference.

We have some design gurus onboard, I'm sure they'll chime in soon.

[MrsB]

ok I was able to resize the pics, hopefully not too small now
I am using charcoal, usually lump.
On the tuning plates (I assume thats the correct term), I personally think I need at least one more if not two to get the heat more evenly distributed. But I was also thinking that if I get 4 or 5 to almost completely cover under the grates and leave a small opening at the left end, then hubby could move the smoke stack to the other end and make a reverse flow out of it

[Hippy]

Start by fixing the door on your fire box. Get everything sealed well.


Make sure your guages are true. Check them in boiling water if they are removable.


When you may have multiple issues. Starting with the ones you know about and making sure you have good info/feedback.

Is heading the right direction. Good Luck!

[aczeller]

from what i can tell form the still-small pics (lol), it looks like a beast. here are a few of my suggestions:

1.) for the fire door - if you think you are pulling too much air, you probably are. even with my vents closed 100% on the intake side, and the door latched on my stick burner, i still have problems keeping my temps down due to the excessive air leakage. i know what i got to do... just gotta spend the time to do it now. if it were me, i would do one of two things at this point:

1. if possible remove the door and bang the $%^ out of it until it's flat. reattach it and see if that helps. if need be, heat it up and bang it. the heat will help out a lot. you can also run weld beads on the convex side. as the weld beads cool, they will "pull" the plate flat. it won't be pretty, but it'll get the job done.

2. if you can't easily remove and reconnect the door, just make a new one and weld it in place. use some heavy-gauge steel (at least 1/8" thick), and some quality hinges. you won't regret the extra expense in getting some good hardware.

after the door issue is corrected, a charcoal basket can be easily constructed and used as you had hoped. larger smokers like your can be easily "converted" from stick-burning to charcoal, and back. it just depends on what you shove into the firebox. lol. if you can learn to control the air, you can run either one without an issue.

2.) once you get your air control issues settled, then you can worry about your tuning plates. NEVER weld them down or fasten them... they are supposed to be able to slide. they are used to help distribute the heat more evenly. start with one of them ALMOST tight against the fire-box side of the smoker. you don't want it right up against the wall or else you will hinder your smoke paths. take the next one and leave an inch or so between the first one and the second one. this will allow a little heat up, but more importantly, it will allow some smoke to reach your food. leave your grates off, and start a fire. get your smoker up to temp, then move your plates as required to start evening out the heat. once you get close, one trick i have heard is to evenly place some refrigerated dinner rolls on the grates and cook them in the smoker. the more done they are, the hotter your smoker is in that specific area. if needed after that, add a plate or two.

3.) another option instead of using tuning plates, is to use a diffuser plate. Grateful Dave can tell you more about his... it's where i am pulling my inspiration. his plate runs about 2/3-3/4 of the way across his smoker (starting from the firebox side), and has increasing-sized holes as you move away from the firebox. it works on the same principles as the tuning plate, but is easier to "reset" if it moves accidentally for some reason.

[Meat Hunter]

ok I was able to resize the pics, hopefully not too small now
I am using charcoal, usually lump.
On the tuning plates (I assume thats the correct term), I personally think I need at least one more if not two to get the heat more evenly distributed. But I was also thinking that if I get 4 or 5 to almost completely cover under the grates and leave a small opening at the left end, then hubby could move the smoke stack to the other end and make a reverse flow out of it

Hmmm, maybe it's on my end, but I still can't see some of the pics, and they are smaller LOL.
As far as turning it into a reverse flow, ehhhhh, not really, unless you moved either your firebox or chimney as they are both on the same side. But, with enough tuning plates laid across the bottom and leaving small gaps between them, you should surely improve your temp differences. The only way to do it is to play around with it and see how your smoker behaves as each smoker performs differently. Even some of the commercially made ones are tuned individually to ensure peak performance. You should look at figuring this out as part of the fun in smoking. Identifying a problem, learning how to correct to it and making the changes to do so. By learning how and where to move the tuning plates, you can cook bigger items and smaller items together and have them finish pretty close to one another. Or say you want some quick appetizers like ABT's, you open the gaps on them plates and have the abts above that area but at the other end, you have say your pork butts. Just like a grill, you have hot spots, but here you can determine which ones

[aczeller]

my bad... i didn't see that you had a charcoal basket already. fill it with charcoal, then only put the pre-lit charcoal on one side or in one corner, rather than across the whole top. that will help it "spread out" more controllably and help your charcoal last longer.

Also, make sure you have plenty of room below your basket for ash to fall through. i still need to fix mine, but over the course of a smoke, the ash will build up too much and will smother my charcoal from below.

Later,
Andy

[Beer-B-Q]

They seem to have you covered on the smoker, Now lets work on the images...LOL

I see you use Photobucket so upload your pics at 640x480 and you will be set. just remember to use the full size code and not the thumbnail code.

[aczeller]

typically, i will use 600x800 ("Large"), so feel free to use mine as a guide if you so desire.

the easiest way i have found to embed them into posts is to use the [img] and [/img] codes, then just find the image, right click, select "copy image location", and paste it between the "image begin" and "image end" tags.

Later,
Andy