New Oklahoma Joe With Mods
Posted: Sat May 18, 2013 9:54 pm
First post. Bought a new OK Joe a couple of months ago after researching here. Fired it up as soon as I got it off the trailer and managed to smoke some decent ribs right out of the box. A few problems were apparent. It burned charcoal like crazy, ran too hot, and the charcoal grate is too close to the bottom of the fire box.
My previous smoker was an 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain. Pretty thrifty on the charcoal, so I decided to use the charcoal grate and ring from the WSM in the OK Joe. Two bricks in the fire box on top of the OK Joe grate support the WSM charcoal grate perfectly. Much better on the charcoal use but it still tended to go up to 300 degrees too easily. There were some gaps around the fire box door so I just decided to cover them with aluminum foil. I left the gap in the top of the firebox door for a little air flow. The firebox vent stays closed. With a half a bag of charcoal, I can now get a 5 to 6 hour burn and the OK Joe hits a solid 220 degrees and stays there without tending the fire. The bricks elevate the grate so ash piling up only becomes a problem after an 18 to 20 hour burn. At that point, I just open the firebox vent to increase the air flow. Another benefit is that charcoal doesn't touch the outside wall of the firebox, so I am not burning the paint off it and causing rust.
Another problem was smoke leaking from the pit door. I tried to season the gaps to seal them up but that wasn't working. Read on another thread about using high temp silicone to seal the gaps. Ran a bead of silicone around the lip of the door and covered it with waxed paper, then just closed the door and let it dry over night. Tried it out today and it worked great. I get a little leakage here and there where I didn't use enough silicone but it is a much better seal. I can get smoke to come out the drip hole now. I use that as a gauge to adjust the chimney vent. I open it until smoke stops comming out of the drain hole. I had some silicone left over so I used it to seal the gap where the chimney goes into the pit.
I tried the chimney elbow mod to lower the opening of the chimney closer to the grate. Not sure if I like it. With the other mods, the temperature across the grill stays pretty steady until you get close to the firebox. A tuning plate would solve that problem but I like to use the extra heat there to finish off stuff like crisping chicken skin. It gets about 350 degrees right above the firebox opening but about 12" into the cooking chamber, it is back to 220 degrees.
My OK Joe has 1/8" steel, which is more than adequate. It will hold 220 degrees with outside temps in the high 30s. Overall I am very happy with my OK Joe. Nice to have the extra room and it does a better job than my WSM after I swapped in the fire grate and ring from the WSM. I'll try posting a pic tomorrow after I clean it out.
My previous smoker was an 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain. Pretty thrifty on the charcoal, so I decided to use the charcoal grate and ring from the WSM in the OK Joe. Two bricks in the fire box on top of the OK Joe grate support the WSM charcoal grate perfectly. Much better on the charcoal use but it still tended to go up to 300 degrees too easily. There were some gaps around the fire box door so I just decided to cover them with aluminum foil. I left the gap in the top of the firebox door for a little air flow. The firebox vent stays closed. With a half a bag of charcoal, I can now get a 5 to 6 hour burn and the OK Joe hits a solid 220 degrees and stays there without tending the fire. The bricks elevate the grate so ash piling up only becomes a problem after an 18 to 20 hour burn. At that point, I just open the firebox vent to increase the air flow. Another benefit is that charcoal doesn't touch the outside wall of the firebox, so I am not burning the paint off it and causing rust.
Another problem was smoke leaking from the pit door. I tried to season the gaps to seal them up but that wasn't working. Read on another thread about using high temp silicone to seal the gaps. Ran a bead of silicone around the lip of the door and covered it with waxed paper, then just closed the door and let it dry over night. Tried it out today and it worked great. I get a little leakage here and there where I didn't use enough silicone but it is a much better seal. I can get smoke to come out the drip hole now. I use that as a gauge to adjust the chimney vent. I open it until smoke stops comming out of the drain hole. I had some silicone left over so I used it to seal the gap where the chimney goes into the pit.
I tried the chimney elbow mod to lower the opening of the chimney closer to the grate. Not sure if I like it. With the other mods, the temperature across the grill stays pretty steady until you get close to the firebox. A tuning plate would solve that problem but I like to use the extra heat there to finish off stuff like crisping chicken skin. It gets about 350 degrees right above the firebox opening but about 12" into the cooking chamber, it is back to 220 degrees.
My OK Joe has 1/8" steel, which is more than adequate. It will hold 220 degrees with outside temps in the high 30s. Overall I am very happy with my OK Joe. Nice to have the extra room and it does a better job than my WSM after I swapped in the fire grate and ring from the WSM. I'll try posting a pic tomorrow after I clean it out.