My off set troubles.

[Guamaque]

I'm an experienced Qer, ( Kamado Joe and UDS ) but I decided to try an offset for the first time after my Kamado lid broke off. ( 7 years of service , so no hard feelings ) . So far, I'm super frustrated, I figured I would seek help before taking the pit to a secret location and attaching C4 to it.
The grill is a Chargriller Pro, and appears to be decent quality for now.
I did all the mods, and they all dont work except the nomex felt gasketing works great, no leaks. I extended the stack, made tuning plates, added temp gauges, have an upgraded very nice firebox, I even spent an entire day adding a hole for my Guru with the adaptor sleeve. So now, wow !!! the grill looks super nice !!! But.... it sucks. Seriously...

My problems, in no particular order are.

1. Its difficult to get the Q to maintain a 250 F temp, even with a constant stick burning flame. It seams the hotter i make the fire, it doesnt really affect the inside of the Q temp, The temp wants to hang out at the 210 F mark, just too low for me.
2. Seams the only area that is hot enough is the grill immediately next to the firebox. Everyone else is building shields here to reduce the heat, yet, Its the only area that will cook anything for me. I'm just aiming for a 230-250 F temp but its hard to get above 220 really. So I removed all the firebricks, everything inside, except the stack extension is still there, and it made no improvement or difference.
3. I used the BBQ Guru for years, on the Kamado's and Uds, love it, So I spent a lot of time installing it on this grill, and after 3 cooks already I came to the brutal reality that the Guru is completely worthless on this type of smoker. Is that me, or does anyone feel that way as well. The reason I say it is because the only way to get even a minimum 230 F temp is to leave the side firebox door completely open with a active flaming fire in it, so the Guru is worthless, it just runs all the time and does nothing. This is a totally new concept to me coming from the Kamado / UDS world.
I appreciate any and all comments, I would like to make this smoker succeed for now.

 

[Radrob]

Don't use that firebox and use some charcoal to get a base and then use wood. It takes more wood than you think to get the temps up. And you have to continue feeding it to maintain, practice and you'll be fine.
Post a pic of the baffle plates you have in there, maybe it's set up wrong.

 

[el luchador]

a controller will not do anything for this pit. it requires way more air than a bbq guru can feed. way more.

 

[Guamaque]

I didnt use baffle plates, i used the firebricks instead, only reason was bc i had them already and thought it would be just as good if not better, but , like i mentioned, i removed them all, no baffling , no bricks , nothing inside for heat deflections since i was having trouble getting any heat at all i pulled it all out, but it didnt make a difference really. And Luchador, yes, thanks for the opinion, i seam to come to that conclusion immediately, the style is so different than UDS where my biggest problem was overheating, now I have the opposite problem, haha ...

 

[Guamaque]

Don't use that firebox and use some charcoal to get a base and then use wood. It takes more wood than you think to get the temps up. And you have to continue feeding it to maintain, practice and you'll be fine.
Post a pic of the baffle plates you have in there, maybe it's set up wrong.

--- I thought about this, but it made me think, well if i did that, then why buy an offset and just use a regular grill. Made me feel like its cheating the design, but if this is what you are supposed to do, ill give it a try.

 

[Radrob]

NO, I'm talking about the charcoal basket you made, remove that and use wood. You're probably gonna have to leave the door opened a little and always leave the exhaust wide open.

 

[Radrob]

You can use those fire bricks in the fire box to hold heat and protect the metal.

Try a cookie sheet for a heat deflector/baffle.

Here's how I modded mine.

 

[SmittyJonz]

Ditch the Basket, the exhaust extension and the Guru then study this thread and all links within.....
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=209208
.

 

[Radrob]

I want to add some of my experience that might help.

I have a drum and bought a used offset and the biggest thing to realize if you need an actual fire burning inside the fire box. You have to keep feeding wood to it because it burns faster than you think. Another thing is the wind will either help or hurt depending on the direction.

I watched a bunch of youtubes and they helped, here's some I thought were worth mentioning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCX5C0DIrfc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS1veMrDOC4&t=6s

 

[ronbrad62]

Follow Smitty's advice. I tried to pretty much do the same things with an offset that you are attempting to do and the brethren taught me that it isn't designed for that. Wood+fire+meat is all you need (and beer to pass the time while you are adding splits).

 

[LTG]

Good to see the usual “me too” blabbering has already started. Especially from those that have never cooked on one. I owned one of those for 3 years. I routinely ran mine @ 300 plus degrees all day. A few things that I may or may not have mentioned in your other thread:

The exhaust extension helps

A basket is a good idea

Get rid of the t plates in the basket

A guru is worthless on a cooker that leaky

Fill the basket up 3/4 of the way with lump. Light it and then once your coals are red hot then throw a stick on top. You will see 350* easily

Then add sticks as needed to maintain

They need a basket to maintain a good coal base

You will prob need to leave the sliding door cracked for the fire to get enough air

 

[Monkey Uncle]

If you are measuring the temp just using the thermos you have in the door, you probably are not getting an accurate temp reading on the grate. Use a probe that mounts on the grate - you may be cooking hotter than you think you are.

In your previous thread, you didn't post any pictures and I assumed you had the same cheapo Char griller that I've used for years. But your rig appears to be a big step up from mine - thicker metal, probably less leaky. I guess Char griller has re-designed their product in recent years. That rig looks roughly equivalent to an OK Joe. So you should be able to control temps much better than I originally thought, but the downside is that you'll need to burn more fuel to do it.

As radrob and Smitty said, get rid of the charcoal basket and replace it with a flat grate that has plenty of space under it to collect the ashes. You want unimpeded air flow from your intake running under your fire at all times. If the logs and coals are sitting in ashes, you'll never get enough air flow to get the temp up.

Start your fire with a full chimney of fully lit lump and put a decent sized split on top of it. Then add two small splits at a time every time the old splits get to the point where you can start knocking them apart into coals. If your coal bed dies down to the point that it's hard to ignite the new splits that you add, put in another chimney of lit lump to build your coal bed back up.

Personally, I would keep the stack extension. Without it, the left side of the grate probably won't get hot enough. Not sure about tuning plates, but once you get your fire box set up right and learn how to manage the fire properly, I bet you will at least need some sort of a deflector over the firebox opening.

 

[SmokerKing]

I started out with a very similar side box smoker. Did all the mods and finally got tired of the hot spots and feeding the fire every 1/2 hour. Sold it after a year.

 

[OklaDustDevil]

As radrob and Smitty said, get rid of the charcoal basket and replace it with a flat grate that has plenty of space under it to collect the ashes. You want unimpeded air flow from your intake running under your fire at all times. If the logs and coals are sitting in ashes, you'll never get enough air flow to get the temp up.

Start your fire with a full chimney of fully lit lump and put a decent sized split on top of it. Then add two small splits at a time every time the old splits get to the point where you can start knocking them apart into coals. If your coal bed dies down to the point that it's hard to ignite the new splits that you add, put in another chimney of lit lump to build your coal bed back up.

Personally, I would keep the stack extension. Without it, the left side of the grate probably won't get hot enough. Not sure about tuning plates, but once you get your fire box set up right and learn how to manage the fire properly, I bet you will at least need some sort of a deflector over the firebox opening.

^^^^^^^ Great advice!
1- use a flat grate with space under it, not a box, baffle, or snake;
2- leave firebox door open or at least open the air inlets all the way;
3- leave exhaust wide open at all times; for now I would leave the stack extension in place, you can experiment with removing it once you have things up and running;
4- use 1 chimney of lit charcoal to kick things off; some prefer lump, I prefer briquettes because they last longer, which sometimes is needed until the first splits burn down;
5- start off with 3-4 splits on top of the lit charcoal to really get things going; after that, really great advice above about how to determine when to add splits; should end up being 1 or 2 splits every 30-45 min (depending upon split size);
6- I suggest you get rid of the baffle plates for now; I've used my offset for 25+ years and never used them, but once you figure things out you can add them back in as you wish.

The overall theme of all this is to start simply, with a minimum number of variables. Then, as you gain experience, you can add in more things, like tuning plates, to fine tune things as you wish.

Give it a go, I'm sure it will work just fine!

 

[cliffcarter]

Good to see the usual “me too” blabbering has already started. Especially from those that have never cooked on one. I owned one of those for 3 years. I routinely ran mine @ 300 plus degrees all day. A few things that I may or may not have mentioned in your other thread:

The exhaust extension helps

A basket is a good idea

Get rid of the t plates in the basket

A guru is worthless on a cooker that leaky

Fill the basket up 3/4 of the way with lump. Light it and then once your coals are red hot then throw a stick on top. You will see 350* easily

Then add sticks as needed to maintain

They need a basket to maintain a good coal base

You will prob need to leave the sliding door cracked for the fire to get enough air

This is your best advice IMHO.

 

[Guamaque]

If you are measuring the temp just using the thermos you have in the door, you probably are not getting an accurate temp reading on the grate. Use a probe that mounts on the grate - you may be cooking hotter than you think you are.----
In your previous thread, you didn't post any pictures and I assumed you had the same cheapo Char griller that I've used for years-----..

Yes, unfortunately on the previous thread I couldn't load the pics, my user error, so i wish that post can be erased, it was supposed to be the same as this thread really. sorry about that. No, it is this cooker its a new one, and yes it looks heavy duty to me, so I was not aware of the previous cheaper versions but it does look like a OK Joe replica. As far as the temp measuring, no i measured it with many temp methods, pit probes, infrared etc, lol, and the ultimate temp gauge as well, my hand, i could actually touch the grill with my hand, so that gave me confidence the temp was too low as read on the probes. But I read all the advice here and i have a plan from it all, as the recommendations are great. So im giving it another shot now with a pork butt. I really think what many of you pointed out, is that i mentally am not used to allowing to see a flaming fire, so I think thats the problem, its a Kamado mentality i need to get rid of, so ill let the flames fly and give it a shot. Thanks for all the great advice.

 

[Kade]

I cooked on a cheap offset for 8 years and fought it every single time I fired it up. The biggest thing that helped me was establishing a good bed of coals. Even with a good bed of coals I struggled maintaining temp. I spent much of the time with a really hot fire and a gated exhaust which caused the meat to taste bad. I just recently purchased a heavy duty custom pit which has made BBQ a breeze. There are much better cooks on this forum with far more experience than me. Just my 2 cents.

 

[OklaDustDevil]

I do agree a good solid thick-metal cooker is important, but it sounds like the OP's meets that definition. It doesn't have to be expensive, just high quality.

I forgot in my earlier post to address the guru -- forget about the guru or any other similar device for the horiz offset. Your goal should be to achieve some seriously rapid-flowing smoke thru your smoker, and if you set it up right you can do it without fans or other devices.

 

[Guamaque]

Thanks everyone for the help , you guys actually saved me, it appears that im on the road to happiness now after taking most of the recommendations. So to close out this tread topic for me, I'll just say what i did.
I had a stack extension and it was down to the grate level, I removed 2-3 inches , so now its about 3 inches above the grate, so i split that recommendation for now, I can still remove it all later. I ditched all the heating elements inside. . I kept the fire basket because, 1. its really nice and i just paid for it -- haha, and 2. I did not make it clear that the basket sits well off the firebox floor, 3 inches almost, there is a lot of room underneath and on the sides. I removed the metal diverters as suggested.
The grate that came with the pit bent on the first cook and is too wide to hold small coals. So I set the new basket on the old grate, but this is not necessary really, its the same height either way.
And the last but not least, i did as everyone recommended i filled that basket with hard coal, and fed the fire with sticks every 45, and yep, that did it. You actually need a fire on these pits, so problem solved. Im sure ill experiment with the tuning plates as i get more experience. I took a few pics, to show, and both sides of the pit stay remarkably similar in temps. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[Guamaque]

Oh, and sorry, , I forgot to mention the last change, I ditched the Guru of course.