I spent the summer learning to smoke on my tiny little Brinkmann combo grill/smoker, and finally decided that I needed something bigger. Soooo... after reading what I'm pretty sure was every available thread in the world on UDS's and ECB's, I stumbled upon a new in-the-box Smoke'n Grill on Craigslist for $20.
What I learned from my reading was:
1: The smoker needs to be airtight
2: You need to be able to control airflow precisely.
3: The coals need space under them so the fire doesn't smother
4: The smoker needs to be airtight
5: You need to be able to control airflow precisely
6: You need to be able to control airflow precisely
Thus begins the adventure!
I cut a 2" wide ring of sheet metal to put in the bottom of the ECB. OD was the same size as the ID of the smoker. This provides a shelf that prevents all the air from coming around the coal pan and effectively seals the bottom of the smoker. I sealed it with Furnace Cement and high temp mortar, then put a bead of the mortar around the inside edge to make an airtight seal with the coal pan. I coated the coal pan with Pam so that the mortar wouldn't stick to it and I could still remove it.
I cut a 2 inch hole in the coal pan, and made a pivoting aluminum damper to cover it so that I could control the airflow.
I had a turkey fryer basket sitting around that convenienlty sits in the coal pan with about 2 inches of clearance, that I cut down a bit so that I could have access to the coals through the side door if I need to add fuel.
I did the fire rope gasket mod around the lid, drilled vent holes in the lid and put a pivoting cover over the holes.
I carefully bent the door and latch until it was an almost perfect seal, sprayed the door with Pam, smeared a bit of furnace cement on the body of the smoker and latched the door. The seal is now great with only a wisp of smoke escaping through the hinge.
I'm doing a test burn now. I started it using the minon method with 16 briquettes in my chimney, dumped on top of one side of the 5 pounds of fuel in the basket, with the air intake wide open. As soon as the temp hit 300, I choked the air opening down to about 1/3 and the temp dropped to about 240 in a matter of minutes. It's been sitting there happily for about 2 hours now. I'll report back later with the final results. ( I plan on adding a real thermometer shortly, but right now I'm using my zillion dollar ExTech lab thermometr to keep track of the temp)
Thanks for all the help!
Photos of the mods are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/reverendchip/Brinkman#