Lang 36 Break’n Her In!

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joshdm94

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I was lucky and received my Lang early due to logistics (couple smokers were about to be shipped nearby). Unfortunately she sat in my garage for 1 1/2 weeks before I had a chance to play. Seasoned her this morning so of course I should cook since I have a good bed of coals!

Before I go to the pron, first impressions of the smoker.

1) hot spots: or should I say which spots are not hot, very disappointed here. I understand the upper rack is going to run hotter, it’s science. But the right HALF of the bottoms runs 50-80 degrees hotter than the left side. So basically I have about 200 square inches I can smoke on, the rest of the smoker is hot and fast to straight up bbq.

2) seasoning: so I totally screwed up here. I placed a couple sticks on top of the firebox before the paint was set (15 minutes after I started the first fire). So paint is already messed up and got paint all over the sticks. Oops!

3) holding temps: after a couple hours of playing with the firebox dampers and stick sizes, I finally have her dialed in (first time playing with Fire). She’s been holding steady temp for past 30 minutes (5 degree fluxtuations), blowing beautiful clear blue smoke.

4) pron: rack of St. Louis and some wings. Man I can’t wait until it’s done!

5) feature I already wish I had: sliding bottom rack
 

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The temps will almost even out during a long cook. I look at that as an advantage really. I've always grilled with different temp zones so it makes sense. If I'm running low on time I can just move the meat to the hotter zone and not change the fire at all. It would only be a problem when you've got it loaded down.

My 36 stretch sat in a hot garage for 6 weeks and seem to have cured the paint. It still looks great. Sand it down and repaint. It'll be fine.
 
If i had a larger cooker wouldn’t be as big of a deal. Not sure how i’m Going to cook a whole packer though, half the brisket is going to be cooking way faster. Guess i’ll Have to rotate and lose some bark
 
I have no experience with the 36, but if it is at all like the bigger ones, the amount of temperature variation is going to depend on the pit master. I can run the 84 within 5-10 degrees end to end or more than 50 degrees off.

Play around with where you set your fire within the fire box, and fire size vs airflow to get her to cook more or less evenly for you. For example, a fire near the door will be more even and one pushed back will heat the near end higher than the far end. Either one may be desirable depending on your food mix.
 
I do not measure my side to side temps anymore after I achieved a 5 degree difference when I was tuning my LGS with the tuning plates. I remember Chris at LSG saying that you need to let the smoker get to temp and hold it there for at least a couple of hours before checking the side to side temps and adjusting the plates. With your reverse flow, I would think you just need to let it have time to even out. It's never going to be exactly even and it need not be.

Another thing, once you put cold meat in your smoker the side to side temps go all wacky anyway for a while.

Regardless, you are going to love your Lang. Just start cooking on it and enjoy it.
 
Nice looking unit Josh. I think you will find by messing with the fire(size of sticks, timing, damper settings, etc) you can get the end to end temperature dialed in some more. I agree with Big N Hot though, I don't mind variance end to end, I know exactly where the hot spots are and use it to my advantage when cooking different meats.
 
I'm not a reverse flow guy, but for some reason I remember other RF folks saying that tilting the pit (one side higher than the other, ex. fire pit side higher or lower than opposite side) can help even out temps... not sure though. Maybe someone w/ a RF can pipe in (pun intended).
 
Thanks everyone. My first cook and I am seeing how the variations are much smaller with a smaller fire. Look is like I need a miter saw to cut my splits. I can def see how a bigger smoker will give more consistent heat, or really how temp variations aren’t as big of a deal, a lot more space to spread out meat.

Wings are off, and the flavor is so much better than I could produce on my pellet.
 

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Congrats! Seems like the sticks on the fb damage happens more often than you would think. Glad you are getting her dialed in already.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
ColoradoSmoke said:
I'm not a reverse flow guy, but for some reason I remember other RF folks saying that tilting the pit (one side higher than the other, ex. fire pit side higher or lower than opposite side) can help even out temps... not sure though. Maybe someone w/ a RF can pipe in (pun intended).
Click to expand...

That is correct. The nose jack on the trailer models is yet another cooking control. Not as easy with the patio models though.
 
Not sure why this works, but it does. I had the 36 awhile back. Leave the cook chamber door open until your initial logs that you started with are basically falling apart when you tap them with a poker. Then close your door to start your preheat. You will be up to temp in no time, and the bottom shelf is virtually even within 45 minutes.

My hunch is by letting out all that hot air out when the logs are still burning themselves down you don't give them the opportunity to super heat that metal on the right side of the cooker. When you have six full logs or so all at a full blown blaze right by one side of a small cooker it's going to take a loooong time for that quarter inch steel to cool off. Especially, since you are continuing to burn wood as you cook.
 
I don’t have too many smokers to compare to other than horizon and Yoder, haven’t seen any others up close. I would say the Lang looks like an extremely well built homemade smoker. The door cuts were done free hand so not straight lines, it seals good though as the steel cut out is the door, don’t notice it unless the door os open. some paint was scratched off on arrival (pretty sure due to closing the smoker before the paint was set). Lang has a good reputation for cooking and the we’re quick to respond and easy to work with.
 
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Final pics of the cook. Wrapped the ribs a little early so didn’t get the Color I wanted, through them on the gas grill to heat and darken which is why the black grill mark.
 

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Free Mr. Tony said:
Not sure why this works, but it does. I had the 36 awhile back. Leave the cook chamber door open until your initial logs that you started with are basically falling apart when you tap them with a poker. Then close your door to start your preheat. You will be up to temp in no time, and the bottom shelf is virtually even within 45 minutes.

My hunch is by letting out all that hot air out when the logs are still burning themselves down you don't give them the opportunity to super heat that metal on the right side of the cooker. When you have six full logs or so all at a full blown blaze right by one side of a small cooker it's going to take a loooong time for that quarter inch steel to cool off. Especially, since you are continuing to burn wood as you cook.
Click to expand...
This works on shirley's so it makes sense that it would work on other rf offsets.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
It has been mentioned but in terms of evening things out the angle of the cooker is actually a bigger deal than you might expect. I've had very good success running my RF cooker with the end opposite the firebox being in a very slight decline.

Easy way to think about this is that heat wants to go up...so imagine if you pitch the cooker so the firebox end is on the ground and the far end is straight up in the air. In this situation the heat will be going straight up (through the baffle) and you'll heat the cooker up very quickly. Now think about it on the opposite end with having a small decline rather than a massive incline. You're slowing down the flow a bit as you're forcing hot air to go down, rather than up as it naturally wants to go. This should really help even things out. On my 60" RF I'm usually within 5° left to right and never have to worry about rotating meat.

As you've already mentioned the size and location of the fire on such a small cooker will also make a huge difference. Good luck!
 
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