Offset Smoker Advice Sought

Wesman61

Wesman61

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I have at my disposal a NB offset that I gave my son when I got a Traeger. It was so frustrating to use I just gave it to him. After reading up on mods and tips for offsets I'm ready to give it another try. I took some pics and would like any opinions you all have. I'm going to try to make a fire basket at work tonight. We have the tools so no problem there. The lid has a lip that sits on the body pretty well but I want to add weather stripping. The chimney sets right at the grate level. I also read about building a heat baffle to even out temp differences from side to side. There's a lip at the top of the opening to the smoke chamber that a piece of sheet metal can attach to. The back legs need another brace so I'll be making something for that.

I'll probably start off be smoking a pork butt. BTW I don't smoke. Those are my son's cigarette butts.

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Two things come to mind.

First, please clean out all that ash! If it gets wet, that's a quick way to rust it out.

Second, buy a good thermometer and mount it through that hole in the middle of the lid. The first few cooks, watch it like a hawk. Rune with the exhaust full open and adjust the air intake. Even fully closed, you're going to have air leaks, so don't use too much fuel to start out. You can always add more, but could be tough to control temps with too much in to start.
 
Plug that hole at the top of the lid and install some thermometers at both ends near grate level. You shouldn't care what the temperature is at the top of the lid because you don't cook up there.
 
That's almost identical to my COS.

The one thing I do that makes the most difference in evening out the temp is to put a cake pan over that lip you see on the smoker side. That stops any flames shooting through the aperature, and also evens out the temp with out retarding the fire. Also, is easily removed if you do want to have some char on the hot side.

Cheers!

Bill
 
Add a rope gasket around the cooking chamber. It will help Keep that heat, wind and smoke under your control.
 
Thanks everyone. I'll be busy the next couple of days. I already made a charcoal basket out of expanded metal. Next is the baffle. I'll be looking around for gasket material and pricing some thermometers.
 
Made a charcoal basket and heat shield. I bought a couple of bi-metal thermometers and will install them this weekend. That shield is 1/16" sheet metal.

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Mounted a thermometer very near grate level. Will probably mount one on the other side of the door.

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