The Texas BBQ Forum

I took a peek at the air compressor tank I was going to use on my winter build and think it's a little to small. I would like to be able to cook like 6 slabs of spare ribs or 4 butts. That would be plenty of room for 2 briskets. Am I going over kill? When I cook for the family I use a small homemade stainless steel grill. But when I do cook for a crowd I always wish I had more room. Any suggestions on dimensions

How big is the "crowd" you would cook for? 10 people, 20, 100? if your usual smoker is sufficient for at least 2 briskets, you can always just use those dimensions as a baseline, then double or triple or whatever. My cooker is 57 x 33.5 x 23 (as per manufacturer spec sheet anyhow). And it will get me through a decent crowd if I plan properly!

Morning dragon. If you get a chance, I would love to see a picture of your smoker. Hope you have a good day.

I'd say definately not overkill. My guess is you'll end up using all of that space more times than you realize.

JustinCouch wrote:Morning dragon. If you get a chance, I would love to see a picture of your smoker. Hope you have a good day.

It's nothing special or fancy, it's an Oklahoma Joe Highland


It will hold a couple racks of ribs, 2 13lb briskets, 2 pork butts and a rack of ribs, or about 6-8 chickens. I can easily cook for 20 folks with it, depending on what I'm cooking.

THANKZ DRAGON IN NEEDED THAT. I WILL REMEASURE MY TANK AND POST DEMISIONS TONIGHT.

I have two trailer mounted offsets. Bahama Mama is a 250 gall propane tank 30" diam. x 70" long. She will easily cook a 300 lb. pig or a 12 lb. brisket. I have no problem firing her up for one or the other. Little Mama is a 24" x 55" offset. She will not cook a 300 lb. pig because of the two doors. but she will cook 8 to ten briskets or about 20 pork butts. There again I have no problem firing her up for just one piece of meat.
My point is do not cut yourself short when building allow for some growing room in your cooks.

k.a.m. wrote:My point is do not cut yourself short when building allow for some growing room in your cooks.

^^^^^ That right there.

I agree with KAM. He says that his big pit will cook as much or as little as needed. So that settles it, go for overkill

I agree with the above. If no one ever accuses you of going too big, you probably didn't go big enough. I completely avoided all negative thoughts of maybe this is too much when building "The Beast". I've never used more than about 10% of its capacity, but one day I will be glad I have the extra room.

Good advice and sound logic there, Justin - - - is this a great BBQ Forum ?or what? - -

Here in America we tend to embrace overkill. For example, the 500 Smith and Wesson, top fuel dragsters, Donald Trump. I feel like a fool for not wanting overkill. So to everyone out there who is about to make something go big!