That’s the plan - thinking the sweet spot will be 3-4 inches from the firebox - finally saw the “scoop” on the pit the mad scientist was boasting about - looks to be 3 inches or so
Offset Fire Management
- Thread starter TheHojo
- Start date
That’s the plan - thinking the sweet spot will be 3-4 inches from the firebox - finally saw the “scoop” on the pit the mad scientist was boasting about - looks to be 3 inches or so
K.W.
Knows what a fatty is.
I built a plate like yours this week and had a chance to do a quick cook with it today. I set it at 3-1/2” and used the water pan shelf running around 265 for 3 hours. I cleaned and sprayed the grate with Pam so the heat pattern would be from today’s cook only.
I’ll try to post a picture of the heat pattern on the grate but I’m not expecting it to show up. :crazy: The oil on the grate was dry front to back all the way across approx 3-1/2” wide on the firebox side, no indication of a hot spot past the plate. Also, it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the draw even with the damper 2/3 closed.
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cayenne
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2004
- Location
- New Orleans
#TheHojo. How did your cook go with the new deflector?
bonz50
Take a breath!
also waiting. :-D
Ran it on Saturday - thought it worked great - secret will be the optimal distance from the firebox
Set it up 6 inches from the firebox - temps were within 5 degrees from the baffle to the stack - in fact it was cooler by the baffle than at the stack collector
Was a great day to fire up the smoker - smoked some pastrami chuck roast (that I pulled for sandwiches), a pastrami venison roast tip, chub of bologna and cheesy jalapeño hominy - also fired up my direct heat cooker and did some venison meatloaf, pork belly and sausages - two days of watching football and entertaining friends
Set it up 6 inches from the firebox - temps were within 5 degrees from the baffle to the stack - in fact it was cooler by the baffle than at the stack collector
Was a great day to fire up the smoker - smoked some pastrami chuck roast (that I pulled for sandwiches), a pastrami venison roast tip, chub of bologna and cheesy jalapeño hominy - also fired up my direct heat cooker and did some venison meatloaf, pork belly and sausages - two days of watching football and entertaining friends
cayenne
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2004
- Location
- New Orleans
Daaaaa-yum
DAAAA-YUM....that looks good!!
Ok...how does one go about "pastrami-zing" a chuck roast???
I'd like to try that!!!
cayenne
Ran it on Saturday - thought it worked great - secret will be the optimal distance from the firebox
Set it up 6 inches from the firebox - temps were within 5 degrees from the baffle to the stack - in fact it was cooler by the baffle than at the stack collector
Was a great day to fire up the smoker - smoked some pastrami chuck roast (that I pulled for sandwiches), a pastrami venison roast tip, chub of bologna and cheesy jalapeño hominy - also fired up my direct heat cooker and did some venison meatloaf, pork belly and sausages - two days of watching football and entertaining friends
DAAAA-YUM....that looks good!!
Ok...how does one go about "pastrami-zing" a chuck roast???
I'd like to try that!!!
cayenne
Cayenne - here you go - there are lots of cure calculators that are on line as well to determine the amount of salt and cure to use based on weight of the meat
Pulled Pastrami Wagyu Chuck Roast
Total Cook Time: Cure (7 days) and Cook (5-7 hours)
Ingredients
- Chuck Roast (4-5 lbs.)
- Prague Powder #1
- Kosher Salt
- Zavala’s Beef Rub
Cure
- 1 gallon distilled water
- 2 teaspoons Prague Powder #1
- 1 cup Kosher Salt
- Mix water, prague powder and kosher salt in non-reactive container
- Add meat to curing solution for 7 days – refrigerate – stirring occasionally
- After 7 days – remove from cure and pat dry
Cook
- Slather meat with favorite binder – then apply a generous amount of Zavala’s Beef Rub
- Smoke at 250-275 for 3 to 4 hours until meat reaches 170-175
- Remove meat, wrap in two layers of foil, add a cup or so of a beverage of your choice to the foil, wrap tight and return to the smoker until the internal temp reaches 205 or is probe tender – approximately 2 hours
- Remove meat from smoker; vent foil for 15 to 30 minutes, then refoil and let rest on counter for 1 to 2 hours
- Remove meat from foil (save juices) and pull/chop the chuck roast; add juices back into mixture
- Place a heaping handful of pulled pastrami on potato bun; garnish with onions, jalapenos and spicy mustard
Pulled Pastrami Wagyu Chuck Roast
Total Cook Time: Cure (7 days) and Cook (5-7 hours)
Ingredients
- Chuck Roast (4-5 lbs.)
- Prague Powder #1
- Kosher Salt
- Zavala’s Beef Rub
Cure
- 1 gallon distilled water
- 2 teaspoons Prague Powder #1
- 1 cup Kosher Salt
- Mix water, prague powder and kosher salt in non-reactive container
- Add meat to curing solution for 7 days – refrigerate – stirring occasionally
- After 7 days – remove from cure and pat dry
Cook
- Slather meat with favorite binder – then apply a generous amount of Zavala’s Beef Rub
- Smoke at 250-275 for 3 to 4 hours until meat reaches 170-175
- Remove meat, wrap in two layers of foil, add a cup or so of a beverage of your choice to the foil, wrap tight and return to the smoker until the internal temp reaches 205 or is probe tender – approximately 2 hours
- Remove meat from smoker; vent foil for 15 to 30 minutes, then refoil and let rest on counter for 1 to 2 hours
- Remove meat from foil (save juices) and pull/chop the chuck roast; add juices back into mixture
- Place a heaping handful of pulled pastrami on potato bun; garnish with onions, jalapenos and spicy mustard
Connor_Macleod
Full Fledged Farker
Looks like you got great results. Did you experiment with the water pan shelf thing, or did you experiment with moving the baffle closer to the firebox than 6"?
Did that when I ran the biscuit test - the closer the scoop baffle went to the firebox - the cooler the temps
Tried it at 3.5 inches from firebox (with no water shelf pan)
When I put the water shelf pan in (which is 6 inches wide) - put the baffle at 9 inches from fire box so that it had 3 inches of space for smoke to be unblocked - it ran the coolest under this set up
Going to get another scoop baffle built at 120 degrees (rather than 90) and try that next
So far it clearly allows you to cook on all the grate space opposite the 90 degree baffle
cayenne
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2004
- Location
- New Orleans
wow...
Wow...this sounds cool.
But not sure it would work for me.
My problem with my BS Smoker...has been getting HIGH temperatures....I can keep it at 225F maybe close to 250F all day long with little effort, but for some reason to date, I have a hell of a time getting the temperature up above 250F and keeping it there....275F and 300F have only been glitches so far.
Of course, I've only run mine 2-3 times and have much to learn, but having mine burn too hot is NOT the problem I have at this time.
With the water shelf and water pan....my temp from end to end are pretty consistent ...only like 2-3 degrees variance from end to end of the smoker as it came out of the box with the water shelf and water pan on top of it....
C
Wow...this sounds cool.
But not sure it would work for me.
My problem with my BS Smoker...has been getting HIGH temperatures....I can keep it at 225F maybe close to 250F all day long with little effort, but for some reason to date, I have a hell of a time getting the temperature up above 250F and keeping it there....275F and 300F have only been glitches so far.
Of course, I've only run mine 2-3 times and have much to learn, but having mine burn too hot is NOT the problem I have at this time.
With the water shelf and water pan....my temp from end to end are pretty consistent ...only like 2-3 degrees variance from end to end of the smoker as it came out of the box with the water shelf and water pan on top of it....
C
Connor_Macleod
Full Fledged Farker
Hmmm...sounds unusual. Are you feeding it full-length splits? How open are you running your firebox door and damper?
Kevin James
Full Fledged Farker
I agree with Connor, that sounds strange.
I have found I can run my BSS pretty easily at higher temps or as low as I want. It just comes down to your coal bed and how often you add wood and how much wood you add at a time.
What I recommend is this. When you start your fire, start with a chimney of lump, and then add 4 - 6 thinner splits and let that burn down to coals. This will get your pit temp up to probably 350 at least while the wood is burning, then once it has broken down to coals, let it come down to 25 degrees below your target and add a split. That will adequately heat then metal up and should get you to your target or a little above. Then from there, just make sure you add a split every time your temp drops 25 degrees from your target. That should keep you where you want to be. There could be some variance depending on your wood type, size and moisture content, but that should at least get you to where you can dial it in based on your wood specifics.
If you let the temps get too low, you probably lost your coal bed and need to rebuild it. In that case I would recommend adding a split and let that get going, then add another in maybe half the time you normaly do, so if you usually add a split every 30 minutes, try adding another after 15 minutes and keep doing that until you get your temps back where you want them and have rebuilt a good coal bed.
I have found I can run my BSS pretty easily at higher temps or as low as I want. It just comes down to your coal bed and how often you add wood and how much wood you add at a time.
What I recommend is this. When you start your fire, start with a chimney of lump, and then add 4 - 6 thinner splits and let that burn down to coals. This will get your pit temp up to probably 350 at least while the wood is burning, then once it has broken down to coals, let it come down to 25 degrees below your target and add a split. That will adequately heat then metal up and should get you to your target or a little above. Then from there, just make sure you add a split every time your temp drops 25 degrees from your target. That should keep you where you want to be. There could be some variance depending on your wood type, size and moisture content, but that should at least get you to where you can dial it in based on your wood specifics.
If you let the temps get too low, you probably lost your coal bed and need to rebuild it. In that case I would recommend adding a split and let that get going, then add another in maybe half the time you normaly do, so if you usually add a split every 30 minutes, try adding another after 15 minutes and keep doing that until you get your temps back where you want them and have rebuilt a good coal bed.
cayenne
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2004
- Location
- New Orleans
I'm trying various things...
Well, I'm trying various things.
My firebox will handle full length splits (16-18")....lenghtwise down the firebox, but to stack sideways on top, I have to cut them to about 12"....
I've been lately experimenting with putting 2x full length splits down and then on top of that I, perpendicular, I put 3x 12" splits...then 2 more full length on top and maybe one more layer...for starting things to get a coal bed.
That seems to work. This past weekend I got up to about 250F easily....and kept that by feeding it 2-3 splits at a time, either long or short, depending on what had burned off....
But I'd feed it a couple splits every 35-40 minutes....it seems to eat them pretty fast and would keep it at 225-250F with a pretty healthy coal bed and quick split ignites.
TO get it up to 275-300F and hold it, I'd likely need to add 4 splits at a time every 40 min, which sounds high volume to my ear compared to what I thought others said they ran with their offsets.
This is running with my stack full open and my door opened to the outermost latch...so the door is open about 3/4 inch all around I believe.
This produces a good fire, seems to have high flow.
This last time, I did manager to keep the actual fire burning more in the middle and towards the cook chamber end of the firebox, that did seem to help keep cook chamber temps up a bit (250F) this time....but the cook chamber this time around was MUCH hotter where the firebox is than past times, where my 225F was pretty much almost the whole length of the cook chamber...
Anyway...I'm still experimenting.
I did my first beef Dino rib this time, turned out nice...faster than I thought.
I also tried my first set of St. Louis cut spare ribs...thought I'd burned them up...but next day they were actually pretty darned good!?
Anyway...that's trying to answer you questions....
cayenne
Well, I'm trying various things.
My firebox will handle full length splits (16-18")....lenghtwise down the firebox, but to stack sideways on top, I have to cut them to about 12"....
I've been lately experimenting with putting 2x full length splits down and then on top of that I, perpendicular, I put 3x 12" splits...then 2 more full length on top and maybe one more layer...for starting things to get a coal bed.
That seems to work. This past weekend I got up to about 250F easily....and kept that by feeding it 2-3 splits at a time, either long or short, depending on what had burned off....
But I'd feed it a couple splits every 35-40 minutes....it seems to eat them pretty fast and would keep it at 225-250F with a pretty healthy coal bed and quick split ignites.
TO get it up to 275-300F and hold it, I'd likely need to add 4 splits at a time every 40 min, which sounds high volume to my ear compared to what I thought others said they ran with their offsets.
This is running with my stack full open and my door opened to the outermost latch...so the door is open about 3/4 inch all around I believe.
This produces a good fire, seems to have high flow.
This last time, I did manager to keep the actual fire burning more in the middle and towards the cook chamber end of the firebox, that did seem to help keep cook chamber temps up a bit (250F) this time....but the cook chamber this time around was MUCH hotter where the firebox is than past times, where my 225F was pretty much almost the whole length of the cook chamber...
Anyway...I'm still experimenting.
I did my first beef Dino rib this time, turned out nice...faster than I thought.
I also tried my first set of St. Louis cut spare ribs...thought I'd burned them up...but next day they were actually pretty darned good!?
Anyway...that's trying to answer you questions....
cayenne
Connor_Macleod
Full Fledged Farker
To use fewer splits while maintaining a high temperature, you might consider experimenting with reducing the airflow after you have established a large coal bed and have the whole smoker heat-soaked. Maybe try closing the firebox door to be open only a quarter inch or less and see if it will maintain temperature with slower airflow and less wood burned. Mine tends to run pretty well like this.
