Calling Horizon 16 Classic Owners
 

I've been looking at this pit. Can any owners share some technique and pictures about split wood size and maintaining a clean fire burning sticks?

I have one myself. I bought a convection plate for the bottom, it seems to help.

As far as wood, I mostly run chunks in it. For splits anything 12" down will work.

One thing I have noticed is the damper in the firebox tends to loosen up after it gets hot. I have mine tightened down to where you have to tap it with something to move it. I mounted a QMaster on mine and it seems to hold the temp really well now.

You have to keep the firebox about half full to keep the heat up. I run it at 225, I haven't tried it any higher than that. It seems to cook at a lower temp better.

My boss at work bought one for the office for me to cook on. Unfortunately most of the time I've put charcoal in the smoking chamber and basically used it for a grill. The couple of times I've actually smoked ribs or sausage on it, it worked fine, definitely had a hot area near the firebox, a deflector plate would be a good addition. I used hickory splits only a couple inches in cross section and about a foot long. Any larger and it became a fire breathing dragon. The wind is always blowing 30 mph in Oklahoma on the day I plan to cook which doesn't help, at least it's small enough I can reposition it to prevent the wind from blowing directly into the firebox vent. All in all it seems to be a quality made unit, about 1/4" steel if I remember right.

The firebox grill grate is 12" by 15" so 12" sounds about maximum unless you start angling them in there.

the 15" dimension is the sideways one, longitudinal to the smoker.

Here are some pictures of the Deflection plate.

This is the drop in version.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps61c85e16.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psc4348a90.jpg