ECB Brinkmann Smoker Mod Question(s)

Looks like ash buildup may be your problem. You can either try rigging up some way to let the ash fall away from the bed of coals, but not into your air intakes, or try switching to lump charcoal, which produces a fraction of the ash that briquettes do.

I use a similar setup to yours. I also put the legs on the outside to allow the charcoal bowl to sit high enough to put the bowl into the inside of the ECB.

However, instead of the setup you use to lift the bowl off the ground, I have the bowl sitting directly on an electric hotplate. I do not light the charcoal at all. I usually fill the bowl halfway with charcoal. Then I add any wood chips/chunks then finish filling the bowl with charcoal. My bowl does not have holes in the bottom.

I leave the hotplate turned on almost high and just plug it in. The charcoal starts to smoke quite soon.

If you are going to be watching it you can unplug the hotplate until the coals have burned down some and re-plug if needed ... or, you can just leave it plugged in.

I leave mine plugged in and the temperature stays very constant in my ECB. I have been using it this way for a couple of years now and it works just fine.

I adjusted the legs so that with the bowl sitting on the hotplate the top of the bowl is slightly below bottom of the the water bowl. Smokes quite good and the meat comes out nice and properly done with deep smoke rings and good smoke flavor.

i did the mods also and found it acceptable. but now i use a weber sj for the coals.

Thought #1: Regarding the temp guages......I'd guess that the 1.5" probe in the side is reading real hot because the water smokers direct the heat up and around the water bowl so the sides are hotter than where the meat is. So, if your probe in the lid is longer and sits down below the hotter air, it'll read cooler than the one in the wall.

Thought #2: The design of the ECB leaves that gigantic gap between the lid and wall. If I were to make any further suggestion it would be to close that gap which will decrease the exhaust rate, thus decreasing the intake rate. That should help with fuel consumption. Of course, I could be wrong, but that's my thought.

To close that gap, I'd use a 1" fiberglass rope like this:


.....around the lid like this:



Here's a thread I put up this past summer about my take on ECB Gourmet mods. Granted they won't all apply to your model, but.....maybe it'll help:
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104545