As promised video of my cook on Vault CORRECTED w/Video

Nice vid.

I couldnt tell what size fan you running on the Guru. Looks like a 10CFM. I highly recommend the 25CFM fan. The smoker is very large, and the 10CFM fan cant move enough air to fuel the fire.

Also, the way I light my cabinet (not a vault)...I fill the entire basket, and use the minion method lighting the corner of the coals with about a dozen coals.

The bark on the briskets look awesome!

Nice video, thanks for taking the time to do that.

Briskets look like they turned out great.

Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

I watched the video last night. Good stuff! Not that it much matters but my Guru has been virtually useless on my Safe. I really just use it as a remote thermometer now. I couldn't get the temps to stay stable until I stopped using the fan and just used the ball valves to control air intake.

One thing I couldn't tell. Did you cook dry or did you use water?

Anyways that's a fine smoker you have there and it can sure cook a lot of meat! Very impressive. Thanks for posting that chaostheory.

Would you explain your method the preheating of the cabinet and benefit you are seeing?

One of my customers built a vault style cooker just a few weeks ago and we've been doing some experimentation. If we let the cooker come up to temp with the charcoal only there is about a 75° difference in temps from top to bottom. If we start a fire and use a weed burner to bring the cabinet to 275°, we can get the temp to settle in within 10° from top to bottom. We've been running the ball valve about 1/4 open and the top vent opened about 1/4". To monitor the pit temp, they are using 12" long TelTru thermometers and have 3 access holes they can slide into.

Not sure If I you heated the food chamber up or not. With 10 briskets you will need some pretty good heat up times.
I would have the charcoal lit with maybe 8-10" in, burning good. just use weed burner to lite and leave door open, while warming up the oven for at least ten minutes, you want it really hot as soon because as you put 120 lbs. of ice (70 deg brisket, let sit out please) the temp will fall fast.

I would then start cutting down the air inlet and watching the rise in temp. As you watch it rise before it reaches the desired temp you need to have it about 15-20% open. It may take more air to overcome the exchange of cool temp meat for warm temp fire.

This is really no different than any pit, its all a matter of learning how to manage it

Hope this helps

wagge said:

Not sure If I you heated the food chamber up or not. With 10 briskets you will need some pretty good heat up times.
I would have the charcoal lit with maybe 8-10" in, burning good. just use weed burner to lite and leave door open, while warming up the oven for at least ten minutes, you want it really hot as soon because as you put 120 lbs. of ice (70 deg brisket, let sit out please) the temp will fall fast.

I would then start cutting down the air inlet and watching the rise in temp. As you watch it rise before it reaches the desired temp you need to have it about 15-20% open. It may take more air to overcome the exchange of cool temp meat for warm temp fire.

This is really no different than any pit, its all a matter of learning how to manage it

Hope this helps

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That is what we're finding out... light the coals, then preheat the cooking chamber with a weed burner. We haven't done a full load of meat yet but did 4 pork loins on two racks, several pans of beans, and two racks of chicken. I'm liking the cabinet style of pit. Next up for us will be a retirement lunch and I think it will be mostly ribs.

I wasn't clear from the video if you let the pit come all the way up to temp before loading it with briskets or not. I know that you can use the weed burner to assist in preheating all that steel in the pit to help that along, but if it were me, I'd completely preheat the pit to the cook temp, even higher to start. Then when you load the meat on, adjust the Guru down to where you want it (if you preheat at a higher temp).

The reason I suggest this is that it should help reduce the time for the pit to recover temperature. I know that sometimes when I'm behind and my gravity feed isn't all the way up to temp and I load it down with meat, it will take FOREVER to finally get to where I want it. Sometimes, even if I do preheat it, it will still take longer to come back up to temp after loading it because of all the mass of cold meat I'm adding.



I like the idea of putting the alligator clip on the door probe. I've never thought of that. I'm going to try that this weekend (I have to cook a full load of butts :thumb. I've always clipped mine to one of the top racks and away from the meat to prevent drips from messing with it, but the I always have to fight the wire when I get in and out of it later. Putting it on the door thermo probe will totally solve that problem.



Great video!
Keep on smokin!

Wampus said:

... I like the idea of putting the alligator clip on the door probe. I've never thought of that. I'm going to try that this weekend (I have to cook a full load of butts :thumb. I've always clipped mine to one of the top racks and away from the meat to prevent drips from messing with it, but the I always have to fight the wire when I get in and out of it later. Putting it on the door thermo probe will totally solve that problem.

Great video!
Keep on smokin!

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I've always been concerned with the accuracy of thermometers mounted on a door, lid or sidewall of a cooker... it seems a probe nearer the meat reads differently.

chaostheory said:

I think I might try just lighting the coals in the box and utilize the residual heat to also heat the box. Then pre heat the cooking chamber. I do heat the chamber to to about 275 prior to putting the briskets on. I think I might heat the chamber to 300 next time. I'll be doing some ribs at my house tomorrow so I'll put some pics up and maybe get a video also.

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Do you find that when you preheat the cooking chamber in your Vault you get a "fake" temperature? What I mean is if I preheat my Safe and it gets to 300F (for example) if I open up the door for 30 seconds afterwards, then shut it tight and let the temp rebound it might only come back to 275. If I open it up again it might only rebound to 250. Maybe I'm making it a bigger deal than it is but it always seems to throw me off.

Question: You said the briskets were "good" but not great. What was the problem? Taste or texture?

With a cabinet cooker that you are going to load up I suggest going way over the desired temp you are going to cook at when warming up. If you are going to smoke at 250, let the cabinet get to 300. Then when you throw all the meat on, the recovery time will be a lot shorter.

Our Vault is not a full Reverse Flow Vault and is about 2/3 the size of the vault in the video so it will start up faster but hers how we start it.

When we start our Vaults we fill the coal basket with coals make a spot closest to the intake (2" ball Valve) and put about a quarter chimney of coals open both vents all the way leave the firebox door open for no more than 5 minutes. After about 10-15 minutes or 160-170 deg. we start closing down the vents 1/2 way so not to let the heat start to run away and than we will fill the water pan with as hot of water we can and bring it up to temp kind of slow 25 deg. hotter than we want to cook at and let it set for about 10 minutes and than load it up and hook up the GURU.