Karubecue C-60SS

Hey Everyone,
I'm pretty new to the site, this is my first post. Been BBQing all my life, but just recently moving from whole hog cookers (cowboy cookers)to the smaller and in my opinion easier charcoal cookers. I have been cooking on a BWS for a few months now, and I like it, but I started getting the itch for a stick burner type cooker. I didn't want a large one, and from what I have read, the small ones can be quite difficult to use. Enter the Karubecue. After about 6 months of research and talking to Bill Karau who makes these, I decided to pull the trigger. It arrived today and since I personally had trouble finding reviews and pictures, I thought I would put up a box opening today and then this weekend I will cook on it and post my thoughts on how it cooked. So, here we go.

The cooker arrived FEDEX in two boxes:


You can see that the cooker and associated parts were packed very tightly but well protected.


This is the cookbox, where hopefully the magic will happen!


This is the autodraft control box. It is KCBS legal.


I'll be nit picky here, the setpoint for the dial on the control box is not marked. I don't know how you set this except to put an external thermometer in the box and adjust the dial until its holding the temp you want, then you can make a reference mark or something. This is a guess, since I haven't used it yet. I'll update on that later.


The Firebox came with 2 envelopes packed inside of it and a string holding some cardboard around the backside of the firebox. The backside of the firebox has two poppet valves which allow the user to choose what type of smoke goes into the cookbox.



The two envelopes:


Contents of Envelope 1: Legs plus hardward to attach legs, plus fire poker.


Contents of Envelope 2: Firebox Tray and Firebox lid



The firebox tray slides into the middle of the firebox like this. The fire and coals sit on top of this tray and the ash falls beneath this tray.


The firebox lid simply fits over the firebox. I'm not 100% sure at this point, but I think this lid is only needed if your using "dirty smoke" from the top poppet valve.


Legs installed. I had a little trouble getting the legs just right. I kept having a corner too high or low. This was finally solved by keeping all of the mounting hardware loose and putting the cooker on a surface which was known to be flat (a countertop for me). Once on a flat surface, I tightened the hardware and all was good.


Two additional boxes. These hold the shelf racks and the shelves. The shelf racks are different that what is on the video on the website for Karubecue. One the video the racks are held in place with some wing-nuts. Now they simply hang from some tabs on the top.



The tabs which hold the shelf racks:


Shelf racks and racks installed:


The complete setup:


I didn't start a timer, but I think it took me about 1.5 hours to unpack and put everything together, and that was with my 4 year old "helping" me. My initial impressions are what I had hoped for: this thing seems well built and well thought out, even the way it was packaged was well thought out. I did run into one bump in the road, but didn't get any pictures of it. I noticed that the door when latched was not tight, so I made some adjustments. It was only after this adjustment, that I noticed that the handle for the door was installed on the inside of the door for shipping. You can see in the photo above, the handle is not visible.......because its inside of the cookbox. Dern. Well, after I moved that to the outside, the latch was too tight and I had to return to the original setting. Not a problem, just a note. I'm not sure how I overlooked that handle being in the wrong place, but I did.

So, if anyone has any questions or wants to see a picture of anything specifically, just let me know and I'll do my best to oblige. I also update when I cook on this thing this weekend. I'll be cooking two butts with applewood, South Carolina Lowcountry style......Vinegar and Pepper. YUM!

ButtBurner said:

wow nice

but I thought you wanted a stickburner?

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Well, I did, and I have read (on this site as a matter of fact) that the definition of a stick burner is a smoker that uses nothing but wood for fuel and flavor, and this does exactly that. Besides the fans, it actually functions like an offset smoker. You still have to add wood every 30 minutes or so.

ButtBurner said:

I am on their site. Its very interesting and informative.

I dont think it actually functions like a stickburner though.

Seems more like a fan forced pellet burner unless I am not understanding it

It sure is a neat concept though!!!

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That is a good point. The reality of it is, that this is its own cooker. I think the best comparison would be that it is a stick burner (no charcoal, no pellets) that works like a pellet cooker (forced draft, thermostat controlled). My personal thoughts on all cookers is that a pellet cooker is hard to beat. It has a perfect fire triangle, needs no tending, and temp is perfectly controlled. The one downfall of a pellet cooker is that it needs no tending, and that is part of smoking to me. I like playing with fire. Even with my BWS, I always put the wood in by hand so that I can open that door and look at my fire. Obviously to each his own and this won't be for everyone. Heck, it might not even be for me..... that remains to be seen.

ButtBurner said:

oh ok so it uses wood? I dont see any good pics of it, I cant get videos on my work pc. Are there pics of it on their website?

I saw an auger in your pics so I figured that was for pellets

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The auger looking thing you saw is actually a fire poker. I'm currently doing a dry run on it. So far what I have noticed is that it got up to temp really fast, only 15 minutes. The other thing I have noticed is that initially it took a good bit of wood. I think that was to get a good coal bed. Now after an hour or so, its taking about two chunks of wood every 30 minutes. Its empty except for temp probes and the temps are varying between 240 and 260 and they are even top to bottom, which I didn't expect since the hot air is drawn in to the bottom of the cook box.

I'll put up some pictures soon of this dry run. I'll also put up a video showing how it works.

This was one of the recommended starting methods. Using an electric charcoal starter, simply stack wood on top of the starter and wait. It amazingly only took a few minutes (like 3 or 4) to see flames and then in just another minute or two, the whole firebox was ignited. The wood I used is very dry though.




The other starting method was to use a chimney of lump charcoal to dump in the firebox and then add wood on top. I'm not sure which starting method is better, I do know that this was extremely fast, but maybe because of the dry wood. It takes my BWS about an hour to get to 250 and that is starting with warm water in the water pan.

More to come:

Wyley said:

After looking at the website I think it works like this.

There is no fan that blows down on the coals. Smoke is either pulled down through the fire by the exhaust fan (causing your draft) via the lower poppet valve in the fire box or pulled from above the fire by the upper poppet valve. Either way the ash falls straight down into the ash tray and is unable to enter the main body of the smoker. Smoke is drawn out through either poppet valve and down a vertical chute into the main body of the smoker where one fan creates a convection to eliminate hot spots and the other fan is used both for pulling the smoke out of the firebox and exhausting it out of the smoker.

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That is indeed how it works. Doing a dry run on it today, I did notice that you can get some ash into the cook box. The key to keeping the ash out seems to be to not add wood while the draft fan is on.