New Pit

[ddlexis]

I am trying to convince my friend to cook this weekend for the Steeler game but it is going to be cold. I am down and out right now. I might have my boys fire it up Saturday night and let them do a few butts.

One thing that I noticed today is, the far end of the tank heated up faster than the chamber door closest to the firebox. Once it came up (2hrs) she was holding the same temp on all the gauges. The next burn we are going to load up the firebox and create a bigger fire to start with. We ran a small fire to begin with today just to see what the draw was like.

[DATsBBQ]

I am at a loss for words. If you ever need to it somewhere.... .

[3 star redneck]

Use thos doors they will hold heat great, but you will need a counter weight on each one...gonna be a good pit..

[ynot?!]

AHAAA! I recognize that red paint

It looks awesome, I was looking at several train theme cookers yesterday on the internet. I am going to start another pit in the spring, I may do a train theme or a rocket theme. Either way, it won't be as cool as this one...

[ddlexis]

ynot,

The paint worked well. Thanks for the tip!! I have no doubt you will turn out another good pit.

DD

[3 star redneck]

Thats truly an amazing pit,a ton of work in it but the outcome is worth it...great job!!

[ddlexis]

Thanks,

We might sell this one and build another.

[Gator]

Woooooooo Woooooooo!

Very nice job.

[ddlexis]

Alright fellas if I don't get this cooker up to temp. Friday we will be going back to the drawing board.

[ynot?!]

Alright fellas if I don't get this cooker up to temp. Friday we will be going back to the drawing board.

I am no expert, but here is what I am thinking. I was concerned you needed to open this area up on your firebox. Now I am convinced of it. Cut all that steel blocking the heat and air out of the way, get rid of that screen too...



I would also consider making the firebox door vents larger. This thing needs to breath brother You have a whole lot of smoker, it's gonna take some BTU's to heat it. You actually have less air flow than I do and my cooker is only 30% the size of yours. If you have to, add some more air vents on the side of the firebox and create direct air flow... These are pretty easy fixes!

I expect a little debug when building a unique pit, don't sweat it.....It's a cool smoker and it's gonna cook sweeeeet!

[ddlexis]

Fire up the plasma cutter. I did think of another proplem the day we cooked the chamber doors were being opened for long periods of time, multiple times. The front stack which will be never used was being opened so kids could see smoke come out the front. Both of these conditions did not help.

We can make the opening bigger no problem we will have that sorted out tomorrow. The same goes with the intake. However the fire in the firebox was great that day. In fact it was much better than I expected it to be. Now it was cold and the wind was blowing like crazy so it was a good day to burn. On a hot humid day, I wonder if the intakes would have faired as good? You might be right on that too, but the other day they were plenty. This is how I know. On my gator pit sometimes the intake is not enough, so I have to crack the firebox door to get more flow, as soon as I do the temp. climbs real fast. It seems on my small cooker, this is more of a problem on hot and humid days not days were I have a good steady breeze. What do you think? Am I way off?

[ynot?!]

Man, I don't know about everyone else here, but on mine. I can have a really hot fire, but if I don't open some vents it either smothers out or just sits there and doesn't flow. I think you are on track with the cold, you have a lot more steel on that smoker that will suck the temp right out.

You can try a welding blanket next time to hold some heat in. I still believe once you get that puppy breathin, she will go! If your exhaust is allowing more heat out than pulling in you will have problems. The one thing about opening up your dampers, you can always close them down if you need to, but I control the air flow with my intake.....Good Luck I think you are on the right track though No pun intended

[ddlexis]

We did the second burn today. What we learned.

1) It will take a long time two heat this cooker up. When you are dealing with a cooker of this size (1000 gallon) and thickness (3/8 inch) there is no way around this fact. It takes two hours to bring up to temp.

2) It can and did run on all temp. gauges from 225 degrees to 280 degrees it burns clean and hot.

3) When you open a chamber door to baste meat the heat will drop 100 degrees. The cooker builds back up to temp. 225-280 within 5 minutes.

4) Once up to temp. the cooker holds cooking temp. all day. To maintain temp the fire needs to be fed 1-2 sticks an hour.

5) The alteration we will have to make is................. you guys guessed it, is some more intake. We have to crack the firebox door 2-3 inches right now for more airflow. (I use to have to do this on my other pit until I cut out more) With more intake we will be able to shut the firebox door.

I have to say this cooker ran well and met our expectations today. We misjudged the intakes but we will correct that. With a pit this massive and this being are first build we will take it as a lesson well learned. The tank takes awhile to bring up to temp. but it works in our favor when it gets going and holds heat longer than my smaller pit. Look for us coming to a town near you on the BBQ circuit

[ddlexis]

Now based on the pictures of the firebox where and at what height would you put the extra intakes. How big? The current intakes are low right above the fire line but the opening going into the cooking chamber is higher. So would you put them higher up above the intakes already on the side? Would this help airflow down through the cooking chamber? Would you put them on the back of the firebox? I think on the back it would not be much help. It seems that if air was coming in on all sides this airflow would work against itself. What do you guys think?

Thanks

[3 star redneck]

I saw the Choo Choo smoker on ebay today...decide to sell it already? It is an amazing cooker....