Sealing a CharGriller?

[backyardchef]

I'm old enough that I get the 'sir' thing now from teens. Ooof.

Mr. SmokeInDaEye is pretty right on about the firebricks. They're the kind of bricks used to make fireplaces and can take very high heat well, and also hold the heat efficiently and eliminate temp fluctuations on pits that are slightly leaky and made from thin steel that loses heat rapidly. I had them in both my firebox and the smoke chamber of my old chargriller.

The baffle is a piece of steel that is on the inside of the smoke chamber, at the top of the opening where the firebox feeds into it. It sits at an angle to force the heat, smoke and flames down along the body of the cooker and prevent the flames from shooting into and up inside the cooking chamber and charring all the food. The Smokin' Pro didn't have one, but the big 'U' shaped ash pan from the cooking chamber can be flipped over and used that way. I used the firebrick to make the firebox opening even smaller.

Hope that helps, sir.:mrgreen:

 

[jrick33]

Backyard,

So you put the fire brick under the inverted ash pan?

 

[backyardchef]

Backyard,

So you put the fire brick under the inverted ash pan?

Yup....And around on the sides, all the way up to the lip of the door. I used to have a pic somewhere....Let me look.

 

[Muzzlebrake]

I like to use 2 rectanglular foil pans filled with sand in the upper charcoal tray. Find them to be cheaper and easy to maintain then the bricks, when they get nasty I dump the sand throw out the trays. I like to then raise the charcoal tray almost right up to the top.
instead of a baffle I try keep most of the flame towards the back of the firebox, havent had a problem with flmae coming up onto the meat at all. Really like that firebox mod, been wnating to improve mine now for a while.

 

[Muzzlebrake]

I like to use 2 rectanglular foil pans filled with sand in the upper charcoal tray. Find them to be cheaper and easy to maintain then the bricks, when they get nasty I dump the sand throw out the trays. I like to then raise the charcoal tray almost right up to the top.
instead of a baffle I try keep most of the flame towards the back of the firebox, havent had a problem with flmae coming up onto the meat at all. Really like that firebox mod, been wnating to improve mine now for a while.

 

[backyardchef]

Found Some Pics....

That's a good idea with the sand, although I never had much trouble w/ maintenance of the bricks, myself, thankfully. You can just wrap them in foil and toss the foil when it gets gunked up. Here's a couple of old pictures that I could find. One is of the firebox w/ the bricks under the pan. That's the old firebox design, I think. The other picture shows bricks in the barrel. You can also cut the bricks down (or have the folks at the masonry yard do it for you), so it fits your cooker's spaces to your liking. When I switched to using the basket in the firebox, I took those bricks and put them in the main, too. I flipped the ashpan in the main chamber and had bricks along the walls and underneath. It took a bit longer to pre-heat-- especially in the winter, but stayed hot forever.

Barrel (ash pan not flipped, obviously)

Firebox (with the old, rinky-dink piece of chit firegrate:evil