New smoker (sort of)

[JohnM70]

I think some of you will remember my old 4 rack smoker. See packer for Thanksgiving.



Well with a little pixie dust and some special help I now have a 6 rack smoker. It is amazing what Miracle Grow can do! ;D



My friend and I did a conversion on the box before I started smoking. We installed an 1100 watt element, replaced the original  wire with 14 gauge oven wire, installed a heat shield behind the element and cut out some brackets for mounting the new element.
The Ideas and mods were in a post: http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=31078
and another post which I cannot find.



What a difference the 1100 watt makes, it will recover from 178 degrees to 225 in 15 minutes.

Before I try a packer again I wanted to do something simple like 2 pork butts. Bone in 15.9lbs. We finished the conversion in January '15 but the temp dropped to down to 30 below wind chill although it did warm up to zero, so now that spring is here!



After 21 hours they look like this.



When we started yesterday the temp was 47 and the wind 25 to 35 MPH and of course right at the box.  The PID held the programed temp without so much as a 1 degree difference.
The Maverick probe was right next to the PID probe and the Maverick reported 3 degrees less and it was constant through the smoking process. I am not going to worry about the 3 degrees now, maybe when I have nothing to do!
From 23:00 to 08:30 the IT was 168 and 164 degrees. Talk about stall! I started the smoke at 210 degrees and this morning it increased the box temp to 220 then to 225 degrees. At the 23 hour mark the IT is now 174 and 180 degrees. Talk about low and slow. I also closed the damper to about half which is not too much since i have 5 wires running through it.

The 2 temp probes above the pork butt are the PID and Maverick. The temp probe to the left is the second Maverick.

After the great conflagration I now have a 5 gallon metal bucket in front of the cabinet and a fire extinguisher to the right of cabinet. The metal bucket is going back to Ace Hardware because it leaks. The warden was not too happy about that! >:(

More a little later.

[JohnM70]

Here are the results from yesterdays smoke. Great taste.



I used yellow mustard on one and molasses on the other. We really liked the taste of the yellow mustard. We will try again with a different bisquette flavor... maybe just a little lighter.

I did not realize how hot the 1100 watt element can get. The butts had been in for about 23Hrs at  a constant 220 degrees and the butt on top was about 10 degrees below the bottom one. I decided to switch racks positions and see what happens. Well the cabinet cooled to about 120. When the door closed I went into the house, about 10 minutes later my wife call she thinks there is something burning. I opened the door and found that there was a small grease build up on the drip tray closets to the heater. It had started  to smoke... I just took the drip tray out knocked the chunk off with my putty knife into my water bucket and all was well.  The PID told the heater to get to 220 and it did. I think it was using a lot of the 1100 watts to get there.
I am very pleased with the way my smoker works and I don't think there will be many issues when the temp drops this Fall/Winter.
As I said before the wind was up and I know a lot of heat was going up the stack. The PID and the 1100W element kept temps solid.

O about the metal bucket, it was made of heavy gauge steel and it's primary use was for dry ingredients. My torch will fix that.

Next the Packer!

John