Lone Star Grillz Vertical Insulated Cabinet Smoker-For the new Owner

[MoTaint]

Love the forum, read a lot of posts but since I have been smokerless for a few years no reason to post.

Looking at getting a LSG vertical, a couple of questions I don’t recall seeing the answers on (I have read a lot of the thread but not all of it)

1. Has anyone had issues with large briskets not fitting on the rack for the mini? Based on YouTube videos and not seeing comments on this thread, I think it would take an absolute freak sized brisket to not fit but want to make sure.

2. With water in the pan, does food on the bottom most rack cook noticeably differently than food on upper racks? It sounds like the temperature is pretty consistent but curious if the humidity is higher and things cook quicker closer to the water. Also wonder if the smoke pattern is different on the bottom shelf since it wraps around the sides?

3. Is it almost impossible to move a mini or large over grass unless you have the off-road package. You need concrete or pavers, is OSB strong enough?

4. Is it safe to transport on a trailer if you don’t have the off-road package?


The wife has given me some dirty looks but ultimately acquiesced to a top end smoker, so I think it is either the mini off road or the large, but not the large off road. I honestly doubt I will have cause to move it or have cooks for 20+ people with any degree of frequency. But I’m trying to decide on mobility vs size since I probably won’t wind up with both.

Thanks

 

[Inthewoods]

Don't own a mini.
I've never seen the point of putting water in the cooker. It's a pretty moist environment.
I moved the large over some pretty uneven terrain using plywood and I had the 8" casters. It's ridiculously top heavy and another pair of hands would be helpful.
Enjoy!

-D

 

[pjtexas1]

Mo,

This isn't a mini. I bought this cooker because, at the time, the mini did not exist. Oddly enough, all the specs I asked for LSG to build ended up in the mini a couple of years later. These briskets are around 15 pounds. It's been a long time since I took this pic, so I'm not sure if any are bigger than 15. These are the same size racks as the mini. Chris calling it a mini is hilarious. I still think LSG builds the best insulated cooker.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[4Horseman]

Can someone who owns the Large IVS with the offroad package tell me the height of the unit?

 

[WeldonG]

Can someone who owns the Large IVS with the offroad package tell me the height of the unit?

67 3/8" to top of cabinet.
72ish" to top of stack.
74ish" to top of wingnut on the spring swivel.

Sorry, it was hard to really get a good picture, it is hard to tell from the photos below but should at least give you a good idea.

 

[WeldonG]

an old photo for reference, lol, I'm 6'-2". She's a big'un.

 

[4Horseman]

Ok, so probably 5'8".

Thanks for the info.

 

[WeldonG]

Ok, so probably 5'8".

Thanks for the info.

No problem sir.

Yes, I would say 5'-8" to top of cabinet or closer to 6'-1" ~ 6'-2" if you include the stack and wingnut. If you are looking for clearance to get into a garage or something, I would go by the 6'-2" dimension.

 

[jrTheSmoker]

Deciding if I should keep this thread going or start a new one lol. I received my large comp off-road IVS not quite 2 months ago now, and have only done two cooks, one for the seasoning with a cook at the end, and one dedicated cook. I sold everything and bought a 1975t and then while that was being built I ordered this smoker to replace all of the kamado, gasser, pellet, fire-pit, and small Brinkmann offset I had.

It's been a learning curve on both. The best food I've made came off a thin walled, holes throughout 35+ year old 16"x32" Brinkmann that's been sitting out by my dads shed for 30+ years that I scrubbed off and seasoned up. I feel like I got a deeper smoke flavor on the Brinkmann than WH at first, maybe because I was constantly fighting the fire every 5-15 mins on the Brink and had clean then not so clean smoke the entire cook, which I think lead to a good flavor due to the mix of mostly clean and super clean smoke. Now with the 1975t, this thing drafts so good and burns so clean I can't make it smoke the least bit white even when I try! Been playing with the intake and exhaust settings, and adjusting split sizes for heat and then adding small splits sideways to try and recreate some of that uneven but still clean burn like the Brink. Came close this weekend on chicken, so next steps are to try and get the IVS to match this flavor of the Brink that I liked the most. Since I live in FL and it's already in the 90s for a few weeks now, and my yard is full sun 9am to 30mins before dark, it's not as enjoyable for long cooks on the offset as it is in winter when I use the pit as a heater too.

On to the reason for this post; the IVS is another story. Been reading this thread and have some things to try, but going to post to track my experience and get some possible help or help others after you all help me learn.

I'll start by saying I love the space on my large IVS compared to my offsets and other kamado's I've had over the years. I started by cooking on open fire's since I was a kid, and just got use (and had fun) to spending hours playing with the fire and cooking multiple loads over an adjustable wire grate I had. But now with kids and both me and my wife working 60+ hours a week, I just want to relax but still have good smoked meats.

I got 2 ball valves, and use both for start-up with no fan, and dial inlet and outlet back at the 50F before setting per instructions. Mine wants to run at 250F no matter what I do with a single valve unless it's wide open, then I can hit my 300F for chicken I wanted. May have to put my signals with the fan on next to try and keep temps up, but I normally load about 1/3 of the firebox with lump on the intake side and put a few pieces of chunks in there. Once up to temp I load 4-6, 1/2 sheet pans of meat on wire racks on top (chicken and ribs) that I cook once a week or every 2 weeks to feed my family plus parents and grandparents I help take care of. After a brief dip in temp, it settles back at 250F, and I have to open the ball valve 100% to get it back up after 30 mins or so, then cut back to maybe half. Once I open the door to mop the chicken and ribs, again do the same process with the valves. I have noticed as well that when temps start to drop, I've twice added charcoal since it acted like I was running out, but when I opened the firebox and pullled it out, only the bottom coals were red and the top were still unlit/black. Once I mixed the coals and added more coals, I could maintain temps, but this was after 3 hours or so and near the end of the cook. I really do not like the smell or strong unburnt flavor of briquettes (maybe I need to try other brand/combos), but do those that have ran lump and briquettes had this problem on one or the other? I saw one guy on youtube mix both together, with briquettes on the bottom and lump on top, anyone else try this? Any ideas on why this may/may not help; perhaps just to keep the lump lit I suppose?

The second issue is the lack smoke flavor with the IVS compared to my two offsets. After finally reading all the pages one by one I found two examples of how people load wood (and one that looked like they emptied the wood chipper after the engine quit half way through a chester drawers, lol jk). I think I've been waayyyy too light in my wood to charcoal ratio. I saw one youtube video of a guy putting fist sized chunks on the wire grate only 3" apart throughout the entire "snake", then putting briquettes in between the chunks, then added lump on top, with I believe more wood on top of that. I may try this method on a smaller cook and see how it comes out, then adjust from there before I make my large batches. Any additional firebox set-ups people want to share would be appreciated as well.

 

[4Horseman]

I don't have any experience on this smoker, but I've been reading this thread and think it's the one I want to get. Currently I use drum smokers and a Kamado.

My general thoughts would be to choke it down a little with the chimney half closed, keeping the smoke in the box longer.

Do you see any smoke ring at all? What kind of wood are you using? Do you wrap, and if so, when? Maybe you are wrapping too early?

I typically wrap buts at about 160, and ribs about an hour before they are done.

I prefer Kingsford Blue over lump. I've definitely had some bitter taste with other brands. I use about a 80/20 mix of charcoal to wood.

I don't think you are ever going to get quite as much smoke flavor on a cabinet smoker as you do an offset, but you should still be getting a good amount.

Personally, I'm willing to trade a little of the smoke flavor to not have to feed a firebox all day long.

 

[ctxwil]

I use two oak splits and an 8.8lbs bag of B&B oak briquettes and it comes out fantastic, I've got some mesquite so sometimes I'll do one split of each. Don't know that I have the desire to go with two mesquite, that stuff's potent!


I made a video of how I run mine here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDSr9BAz4NI

 

[jrTheSmoker]

ctxwil if that's you in those vids, you don't know how many times me and my wife have gone full memorizing haze of googly eyes and drooling over your covered back porch!!! I want that with a place for my firepit in the middle and "belltower" looking housing on the roof that will house a fan to pull all smoke out and not ruin the ceiling.

 

[ctxwil]

Yes sir, that's me! Thank you so much!

You know I had an area that was just not adequate. It was half the square footage but had a real low ceiling, like I could touch it, and it was just not great.

So we decided to redo it, and make it twice the square footage. Didn't seem like that big of a deal at the time, but with the vaulted ceilings man that turned into a damn pavilion!

Honestly love it, the fans are great to keep the skeeters away too.

As a bonus, we collect rainwater for the whole house and it gave me another 900sq/ft to collect rain from.

 

[RedTedRedemption]

Could use some help.

Just received mine last week, and after seasoning I did my first cook over the weekend. I have the Thermoworks Signals and Billows, and got the adapter for the Billows fan for the 2 inch ball valve and it all fits great. I followed Lone Star Grillz recommendations for starting up the smoker, and when it got to about 175 I hooked up the Signals and Billow and let it take over with the controller set to 225. Once it came up to temp, I put my meat on and let it do its thing. For the next several hours the temperature very slowly climbed until it got up to about 265 and held there for the rest of the cook. Even with the fan on the ball valve I had it closed most of the way down, and I had the damper on top of the exhaust closed down to about 1/3. Curious to know if anyone else has had slow temp creep like that. Should I check the seals around the door of the firebox? For more context I got the T plates so I had the charcoal set up snaked with some wood chunks on top. Any advice from the veterans of this smoker would be appreciated.

 

[Inthewoods]

I'm on my second lsg IVS and it just really settles in at 275*. I can go hotter, which is my preference, but under 275* is really difficult. Also sub 275* was a experiment, nothing more.
Have ya tried filling the water pan? Phaps that would help lower the temps a bit.
For clarity....I've no temperature device, so ive no suggestions on that.

-D

 

[Westx]

Just received mine last week, and after seasoning I did my first cook over the weekend. I have the Thermoworks Signals and Billows, and got the adapter for the Billows fan for the 2 inch ball valve and it all fits great. I followed Lone Star Grillz recommendations for starting up the smoker, and when it got to about 175 I hooked up the Signals and Billow and let it take over with the controller set to 225. Once it came up to temp, I put my meat on and let it do its thing. For the next several hours the temperature very slowly climbed until it got up to about 265 and held there for the rest of the cook. Even with the fan on the ball valve I had it closed most of the way down, and I had the damper on top of the exhaust closed down to about 1/3. Curious to know if anyone else has had slow temp creep like that. Should I check the seals around the door of the firebox? For more context I got the T plates so I had the charcoal set up snaked with some wood chunks on top. Any advice from the veterans of this smoker would be appreciated.

I use the FireBoard with a Guru Pitbull fan. It start the pit with the fan full open and exhaust full open. When within 50° of set point I close fan down halfway and exhaust 3/4s. When within 25° I shut the fan down to 1/3 open and exhaust to about a finger width open. I use t-plates that I built that run the opposite of what the LSG ones run so the air is blowing down the leg and not across it. I light about 6 briquettes in the back right corner and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to come to temp. I also run a pan of hot water on the bottom shelf and this helps with the temps. In my opinion your problem was not starting with the fan. By doing it your way you had a lot more coals lit to try and get it to temp and then adding the fan pushed the temp up higher. Over the last 3 years of owning mine I have tried every way in the world to run it and the way I do it now works the best. I use B&B briquettes and Post Oak chunks. I use about 60% briquettes and 40% wood. Some times it is closer to 50/50.

 

[MoTaint]

FYI for anyone waiting
Ordered 3/17, “Fabrication has begun” email sent 6/1.
Mini with comp cart

 

[RedTedRedemption]

I use the FireBoard with a Guru Pitbull fan. It start the pit with the fan full open and exhaust full open. When within 50° of set point I close fan down halfway and exhaust 3/4s. When within 25° I shut the fan down to 1/3 open and exhaust to about a finger width open. I use t-plates that I built that run the opposite of what the LSG ones run so the air is blowing down the leg and not across it. I light about 6 briquettes in the back right corner and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to come to temp. I also run a pan of hot water on the bottom shelf and this helps with the temps. In my opinion your problem was not starting with the fan. By doing it your way you had a lot more coals lit to try and get it to temp and then adding the fan pushed the temp up higher. Over the last 3 years of owning mine I have tried every way in the world to run it and the way I do it now works the best. I use B&B briquettes and Post Oak chunks. I use about 60% briquettes and 40% wood. Some times it is closer to 50/50.

This is very helpful, thank you!! I'll give this a try.

 

[JVM59]

I've had my Mini cabinet for about 4 years. Most of the time I just use the ball valve and damper to regulate temps with little issues, but this past weekend I attempted an overnight Brisket cook so I used the BBQ Guru with Pitbull fan. I lit the charcoals at 7 with ball valve and damper wide open. At 7:45 the temp was 200. I then reduced the ball valve and damper to 1/4 open. At 8:15 I installed the Guru and set at 225 and added 3 gallons of water. At 9:00 I put in the Brisket and the temp dropped because of adding the meat. But at 10:00 the Guru read 225 and the same at 5:30 the next morning. No issues at all.When I first began adding water I found that it became much easier to cook around 225. My biggest struggle with this cooker is obtaining clean smoke while having the airflow reduced down when cooking 225-250.

 

[jrTheSmoker]

I cooked 4 brined and injected chickens Friday afternoon after work in between storms on my large IVS for its third cook. With storms coming, and it already getting soaked before and getting full of water, I tried to talk myself into using the 1975t, but knew I spent all week prepping for this experiment to try and get smokier food off of the IVS. I used multiple recommendations from this thread. I think I still have a lot work to do.

I used B&B comp oak briquettes, with 6 or so small chunks of hickory wood on bottom, running parallel to the air flow (left to right so ball valve blew right into the coals). I lit 8-9 coals on my fish cooker stand, and put them in the side closest to the ball valve inlet. Once lit, I put my signals fan and set to 275F just in case it over or under shot, I would still be good cooking at 250-300F.

I put the coals in at 3:55pm, and put the chicken on at 5:10pm when temp was still ramping up but was at 240F, closed the outlet to 1/4 or so open, and inlet ball valve to half to a third open. Pulled the chickens off at 8:27pm, and they were somewhat dark with dusty looking skin, instead of moist or crispy.

Findings/learnings: I think I messed up not putting my 1/3x6" hotel pan with stock and herbs in the water pan on the bottom. I could have used a little more moisture, but the brine and injection spilled juice everywhere when I cut in to them. I also cook on 1/2 sheet pans with wire cooling rack, then chicken or whatever meat on top of that. I may put the stock in the bottom of that pan, then just fill every now and then, cause the chicken dripped some and that got burned up, and I could smell it when I opened the cooker, and some on the meat, but didn't taste it really. Not sure if this was ash from the briquettes or what, but didn't notice any on the food from the last 2 cooks.

The second is the briquettes had a funky smell to them every so often, so don't like that. It wasn't 100% constant, but smelled most of the cook, and every now and then smelled like regular lump when burning. I've got some jealous devil briquettes I'm going to try next time.

I learned on my saffire kamado to limit the air intake, and leave my outlet device swiveled closed, but the vent wheel 90-95% open, and got super clean smoke every time and maintained 300F perfectly. I'm wanting to try that on the IVS, since I can smell this strong on the chickens, but only had a minor off taste, some stagnant smoke that I did not care for, but didn't completely ruin the cook, but when I took the chickens out of the smoker that sure smelled strong. Not sure this is possible with my next statement, but going to try again.

With the Signals fan, I noticed the app now shows when the fan is running, off, and pulsing air; neat! Like I said, I put the fan on when I shut the fire door, and it took until 612 to get to 284F, so it overshot some. However, once there, the fan was off, and the smoker ran between 284.3 to 288.9 until 815pm. At 815pm the temp started to creep up to 290 to 290.4F, but I can't remember if I opened the cabinet to probe the chickens before pulling and that let a little air in. Overall, much better temp control than before, where I struggled to get above 240-250F unless I opened the ball valves prior to opening the doors to mop food, then left valves alone until back up to 250F before backing back down to 1/8 open or so.

Conclusion, the chicken was ok to good, but I would not serve this to others. Honestly, I try to find the good in everything since there is so much negativity in the world today, so the chicken was moist and good seasoning, but I was pretty disappointed in this cook. The one thing I did find, is brine gives a better texture to the meat and some moisture, but not sure on chickens it's worth it compared to just injecting a hour or so before putting on the smoker. I did notice a huge difference on the turkeys I brined and smoked for Thanksgiving this past year, so maybe I'll save the time and expense of brines for those.

I need to figure out how to get the smoke flavor I want in there without over or stagnant smoke, maintain temps better with lump if this is how briquettes taste but will try a few more with the two bags of B&B comp oak briqs I have left, and balance moisture in the chamber for crispy skin but not burnt or dark.