I looked at two or three of them last Saturday and the first thing I noticed was that the lid didn't seal well at all. Was this one of the mods you had to do to make yours work for you?
They have a nice meat capacity and several other features I liked but the lid seal scared me off. If you don't mind, please tell more about how it performs and the mods you made to the pit.
Yeah, the lid didnt seal well because it was a little out of square so a bend here and a bend there got it flush. It seals good though I could add some oven gaskets to the lid to get it airtight. I just haven't felt the need to do that yet.
The 4 main mods I did were-
Add an expanded steel fire grate so the fire isn't just sitting on the bottom of the firebox. Obviously without it airflow as non existent.
I added some tuning plates/baffles in the cooking chamber. I actually copied them from a Yoder smoker where the plates are solid with holes that get bigger as you get farther from the firebox. That made a huge difference in temps. I have it to about 10 degree temp difference from the firebox end to the opposite end of the cooking chamber.
I added a tel tru thermometer to the lid though I still use my maverick and a couple of oven thermo's so i can monitor temps all over the cooking chamber.
And lastly, i built a shelf to add more capacity for larger cooks and for additional room for contests.
Overall I like the smoker. It has great capacity, pulls well behind my truck and the storage box and basket are great for loading up all the necessities. Took some work to get it where I wanted it but for what I could afford and what I wanted at the time it was a perfect fit. It takes about 30 mins or so to get up to temp and once you get it going fire and temp control are pretty easy. It's recovery time is very good. Doesn't take but 5 mins or so to get back up to temp after opening the lid.
I've done some small catering jobs with it too with the biggest one cooking 16 pork butts in it with no problem. I cooked a whole pig for July 4th and it came out pretty good for my first whole pig effort. It was about a 50lb pig, nothing too big but it fit fine. I cooked 5 contests after i got it and got calls in 3 of them so I'm looking forward to a lot more contests this year and hopefully some more catering gigs.
one note..... I wouldn't have paid anywhere near full price for the pit. Definitely can get better pits for that money but again with the deal I got I thought it was worth it.
