Newbie with a new pit

[roaniecowpony]

Hi guys,
I'm new to the bbq/smoker world. Like many of you, I have been around it and grilled for yrs with charcoal and a lot of gas. I have been doing some "poor man's" attempt at bbq in my gas grill by building a fire in some heavy foil (without using the gas) and actually had some great success with prime rib roasts, hams, salmon and ribs over a few yrs now. But it was time to actually get a proper piece of bbq equipment. I had been around the Big Green Egg style pits in Japan in the '60s as a service brat. They were cheap over there, back then. They seem to work well, but the capacity was too small for my typical parties.

I did a lot of reading on the net and finally decided I wanted a Texas style offset. I was hesitant to spend the bucks for a Klose or Gator and finally settled on a 3/16" thick Old Country 20" x 36" with a 20" square firebox. No sooner than I used it this last week did I start wanting for a Klose or Gator and even a bit larger one. The front door of the cooking chamber could stand to be tighter sealing. I'll probably fix it with some type of seal. The chimney is very large diameter and short. I'm getting some cold air down the chimney in breezy conditions, causing a much cooler temps in the side near the chimney. You can actually see it drop with gusts of wind. My first mods will be to chop the chimney off level with the cooking chamber (allowing a cover to be easily put over it) and building a chimney that slips in/over and is about 6 ft long with a 90 degree turn at the top. This will allow me to rotate it downwind and will be easily removed to store under the bbq. Also, I'm going to make some tuning plates or one perforated plate similar to the Horizon tuning plate for the Oky-Joe pit. My pit does have a baffle angled down in the cooking chamber, about 8" into the cooking chamber, but it doesn't seem like it's quite enough to make for even temps. I also want the tuning plate removeable, since I did some marinated tri-tips this weekend, as I can see a need to maximize a hot spot for some things like tri-tips.

For mother's day, I did 6 racks of babybacks, 2 tri-tips, and a half salmon fillet in my pit. I used my recipes I was comfortable with so as to not be completely in new teritory. On the ribs, I used a few types of rub (John Henry's - Texas Brisket rub, Sugar Maple rub, and Lil Shag's All Purpose rub), then mopped a bit of Susie Q's Citrus Rib Glaze after a couple hours on the pit, then put the ribs in an aluminum tray and sealed with foil (with a dash of beer for moisture), put the tray on the gas grill and took it to about 300F for an hour and some change (until just the right amount of tenderness) then grilled just a bit and added some of my favorite sauce at the end. I had the salmon on the upper rack of my pit during the last hour and half or more of the ribs with some of the Texas Brisket rub on it. When I finished the fish, I stoked the fire up with a bunch of Kingford and preheated pecan, seared the tri-tips on the firebox grill, then moved them to the hot spot on the cooking chamber and built the fire up to get the cooking chamber up to crest around 400F at the hotspot, which cooked the tri-tips similar to the rate at which Santa Maria style grilling does. It took about an hour and some change to cook them, one on the rare side of medium rare and the other medium rare.

All I can say is WOW! The meats all turned out fantastic and recieved raves from the 17 guests. The salmon really got some attention and complements.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm pretty fired up. Can't wait to do a prime rib roast and a ham.

Any advice is welcome.

Thanks, Chuck

[Deano]

Welcome. We always like to drool over pics!

[tex_toby]

Welcome to the board!

P.S. - for what it's worth, I love my Gator!

[NewBQ]

Welcome to the forum!

[txag01]

Take some foil, cut it the length of each lid seat, fold it over a few times into long strips, then fold it over the lid seats. Press it down tightly over the edge so it will stay on. Use a couple of layers so it's got some give and will seal tightly. You can also use a bungee attached to the handle to keep pressure on the lid pressed against the foil. Should fix your seal problem. I did that, on both the lid seat and lid edge, and it kept any smoke from exiting around the lid seats. It won't be the prettiest fix, but if you keep a cover over it when not in use, you won't notice it anyway, except when you're using it.

[Pony Express]

Welcome aboard. I got hook too and love it here

[Bluz]

Well first of all glad you decided to join us, and second congrats on your new pit.

[limey]

Big Welcome, congrats on the new pit.

[Txbbqman_1]

Welcome aboard Chuck

[ChileFarmer]

Welcome Chuck, nice folks here. CF

[Grizz]

congrats Chuck and welcome....

[cj8tk]

congrats!!

[roaniecowpony]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys (and gals?).

My first mod was done before I even fired up my Q. I put dual temp gauges on it down low near the meat rack.


I tried some quick and dirty fixes for my temp differential I was experiencing last Sunday.


The stack extension is a piece of furnace duct about 5 ft long with an elbow on top to turn downwind. It was a little breezy this afternoon when I tried this. It didn't fix all of the problem of too low a temp on the stack side, but it did keep the cold air from going down the stack and cooling it down about 100F from the other side and I liked having the smoke exit up high above and out of the way. I'll have my buddie with the fab shop make a nicer one. The other quick mod was the baffle plate a friend cut from some project material in his fabrication shop.


As you can see in this last picture, the mods didn't completely solve the temp difference problem. They did reduce the differential to about 50F and there was no fluctuations from drafts down the stack. I think I'm going to put a solid plate about the same size in next to test it.