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

buckhorn_cortez said:
I'm baffled by comments about the water pan. I use a foil pan on the lower shelf to catch the drippings from the other three shelves. To clean up, I drain the water pan into a 5-gallon bucket.

As the water is almost drained out, I add an additional 3 liters of water to rinse the water pan - that's all the cleanup that's needed.

I dump the water into the utility sink that I have as it has no fat in it, and then I rinse out the bucket.

Total time for me to cleanup the water pan is about 3-4 minutes- and hardly difficult or "messy."
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I use water all the time. Clean up for me is quite simple as well...

I use all cooking racks and let the fat drip into the water pan, typically cooking 8-10 briskets at a time. I keep the water pan topped off during the cook.

When the cook is done, I drain the pan into a 5 gallon bucket, and leave the smoker fire running to dry out the pan, and burn itself off. The next morning, I scrape the pan with putty knife and vacuum the mess and the ash with an ash vacuum. Then spray the smoker down with pam. Total clean up time 30min.
 
buckhorn_cortez said:
I'm baffled by comments about the water pan. I use a foil pan on the lower shelf to catch the drippings from the other three shelves. To clean up, I drain the water pan into a 5-gallon bucket.

As the water is almost drained out, I add an additional 3 liters of water to rinse the water pan - that's all the cleanup that's needed.

Since the water has no fat in it, I dump it into the utility sink, and then I rinse out the bucket.

Total time for me to cleanup the water pan is about 3-4 minutes - and hardly difficult or "messy."
Click to expand...

I can see a rise in disposable pan sales this week. You gotta love a well thought out plan. :thumb: my issue with water is that I'm too cheap to use the extra fuel.
 
I'm also interested in how people handle an empty water pan as the filler acts as an open vent - negating much of the control from the damper.
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Cap with something?
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In fact, that's what I do. I've fabricated a stainless steel cap for the filler, and if the water pan is empty, I cap the filler.

I can see a rise in disposable pan sales this week. You gotta love a well thought out plan.
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I pay $42 for 50 pans. With shipping that makes them about $1.00 each. The pan makes cleanup 100% easier and faster - and that's worth $1.00 to me...


....my issue with water is that I'm too cheap to use the extra fuel.
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I buy charcoal on sale. When Stubb's was on sale I purchased 45 bags at costs between $2.29 and $4.49 per bag. For a 12-14 hour cook, I use about 2/3 of a bag. That makes the cost about $3.00 in charcoal. Without water I might get that down to $2.00 worth of charcoal. I'm not sure the $1.00 in savings makes that much difference.
 
buckhorn_cortez said:
In fact, that's what I do. I've fabricated a stainless steel cap for the filler, and if the water pan is empty, I cap the filler.



I pay $42 for 50 pans. With shipping that makes them about $1.00 each. The pan makes cleanup 100% easier and faster - and that's worth $1.00 to me...
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I've made caps out of aluminum flashing and a piece of a disposable pan. I mostly cook in pans so I go thru a lot too. Sam's has them on sale, 15 for $6.88 normally $8.38
 
I've made caps out of aluminum flashing and a piece of a disposable pan.
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Whatever works. You can certainly fab the cap out of anything from foil to found metal.

I'm retired, and have three welders and a plasma cutter + a supply of stainless in various forms - so, for me all it took was about one hour of time with the plasma cutter and TIG welder.
 
buckhorn_cortez said:
Whatever works. You can certainly fab the cap out of anything from foil to found metal.

I'm retired, and have three welders and a plasma cutter + a supply of stainless in various forms - so, for me all it took was about one hour of time with the plasma cutter and TIG welder.
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I must be the only one who stuffs a rag/towel in the refill opening to "cap" it off. Only tried it a few times before sticking to water :)
 
That's about where mine loves to run. A little cooler than the 275* my WSM liked. As long as it is stable, which it is, I can deal with it.
 
THoey1963 said:
If you look inside the water fill opening, the actual hole is about the size of a wine bottle. Hmmm... If there was only something that could be used like to seal a wine bottle...

Yep, I use a cork from a bottle of wine...
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I believe this is by design. I've had a wine cork in mine since day one.
 
I stuffed a rag in it...I dont have any wine lol.

250 so far is where this likes to settle at, I'm going to pop it up here in a bit and see if it will be kind of enough to settle higher.

-D
 
I just set the kill plug from my DigiQ over the water fill hole, and stick my DigiQ bracket into the water fill square.

If you want to use water, go right ahead.

Looks like it takes that guy an extra 5 mins to clean, another guy 30 mins to clean, some guys use a putty scraper, etc.

It doesn't take me any time, zero mins spent cleaning. I have cooked with and without water and it makes zero difference in the end product, in my experience.
I also don't like the extra fuel that water consumes when heating it up, and the big swing in temp when it starts to dry up.

Disposable pans and no water for me. Love the fan setup though, I cooked with the BV for a year, and it was fun but the fan makes the pit so much nicer to use overnight. Not giving the fan up anytime soon, that's for sure.
 
If you look inside the water fill opening, the actual hole is about the size of a wine bottle. Hmmm... If there was only something that could be used like to seal a wine bottle...

Yep, I use a cork from a bottle of wine...
Click to expand...


Great idea! I don't drink, so I never have wine bottles around to get a cork from one. But, good for you - nice solution to capping the opening.

I also don't like the extra fuel that water consumes when heating it up, and the big swing in temp when it starts to dry up.
Click to expand...

There's an easy solution to the warm up. Wait for the interior temperature to reach about 100 F. Then use hot water to fill the pan. The hot water will be warmer than the interior at that point, and will actually help raise the temperature. It takes about 1 hour for me to heat up the smoker to 230F.

It doesn't take me any time, zero mins spent cleaning.
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So then...you don't bother to clean the grates or empty the ash pan...? It takes me about 30 minutes the next day to make sure all of the grates are clean, cleanup the charcoal basket, and empty the ash pan.

I find the zero minute claim hard to believe, unless your smoker has some kind of auto-cleaning feature.
 
We don't drink wine either, well, the wife gets the fancy box kind, but she works at a bar, so I just asked her to save me a couple corks. Ask a friend. We all have a friend that is a wino... :mrgreen:

Thanks for the link to the vacuum. I saved it to my Amazon wish list. I have been sweeping it out so far. Thought about a vacuum. Just don't need another thing to store when not needed.
 
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