kihrer
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2011
- Location
- Harleysville, PA
I ain't as young as I once was.
I just finished an all day charity event where I smoked 10 pork shoulders and served about 80 people. It gave me a chance to try out my new charcoal basket on my Jambo. My goal was to be able to cook for 4 hours with out having to mess with the firebox and to be able to run at 250 degrees. I have been looking at charcoal box designs and at threads discussing their use on offsets. I decided to design something similar to the Klose maze but I did mine in an up and down fashion versus side to side.
The box is 14 inches square by 12 inches high. It starts with an air-gap wall 1/3 of the way in that runs from the top of the box for 8 inches with a 4 inch gap at the bottom. Then it goes another 1/3 at that air-gap wall starts at the bottom and runs up for 8 inches.
The basket was filled with Stubbs and apple wood chunks. I torched the 1/3 of the basket that has the wall that runs all the way to the top. So, the basket burns the first third by traversing downward. It then snakes underneath the air-gap wall and burns upwards. Finally it crosses over and burns down the last third.
I lit the basket at 3:45 AM. By 4:30 I was up to temp and I shut the air intake way down on the Jambo firebox. I also closed the exhaust damper to about 1/4 open as that is how you control temp on a Jambo. It let it cruise at 250 degrees until all the white smoke was gone and I was running sweet blue. At 5:00AM I had the 10 shoulders on. The pit quickly recovered by me cracking the door on the firebox for about 5 minutes. I then shut the door tight and the pit held temp with +- 5 degrees until 10:30. At that time I started a chimney full of Stubbs and put them in a small basket that I have. I pulled the big basket and and dumped the remaining coals and reloaded all but the first 1/3. I then pulled the small basket and dumped the coals into the first 1/3 and put the big basket back in. All of this took maybe 10 minutes and during the interim the pit temp was 225. I cracked the door on the firebox until the pit climbed back up to 250 and the closed it tight. Shoulders were ready at 3:30 and pit was still cruising at 250.
This was by far the easiest smoke I have ever done. I even ran errands while my pit was going. I had my daughter watch the Maverick while I was gone but she hummed right along steady as a rock. The shoulders turned out great! I must say it was nice getting to relax a little.
Sorry for the long-winded post but I thought I'd be as detailed as possible in case someone was interested.
I just finished an all day charity event where I smoked 10 pork shoulders and served about 80 people. It gave me a chance to try out my new charcoal basket on my Jambo. My goal was to be able to cook for 4 hours with out having to mess with the firebox and to be able to run at 250 degrees. I have been looking at charcoal box designs and at threads discussing their use on offsets. I decided to design something similar to the Klose maze but I did mine in an up and down fashion versus side to side.
The box is 14 inches square by 12 inches high. It starts with an air-gap wall 1/3 of the way in that runs from the top of the box for 8 inches with a 4 inch gap at the bottom. Then it goes another 1/3 at that air-gap wall starts at the bottom and runs up for 8 inches.
The basket was filled with Stubbs and apple wood chunks. I torched the 1/3 of the basket that has the wall that runs all the way to the top. So, the basket burns the first third by traversing downward. It then snakes underneath the air-gap wall and burns upwards. Finally it crosses over and burns down the last third.
I lit the basket at 3:45 AM. By 4:30 I was up to temp and I shut the air intake way down on the Jambo firebox. I also closed the exhaust damper to about 1/4 open as that is how you control temp on a Jambo. It let it cruise at 250 degrees until all the white smoke was gone and I was running sweet blue. At 5:00AM I had the 10 shoulders on. The pit quickly recovered by me cracking the door on the firebox for about 5 minutes. I then shut the door tight and the pit held temp with +- 5 degrees until 10:30. At that time I started a chimney full of Stubbs and put them in a small basket that I have. I pulled the big basket and and dumped the remaining coals and reloaded all but the first 1/3. I then pulled the small basket and dumped the coals into the first 1/3 and put the big basket back in. All of this took maybe 10 minutes and during the interim the pit temp was 225. I cracked the door on the firebox until the pit climbed back up to 250 and the closed it tight. Shoulders were ready at 3:30 and pit was still cruising at 250.
This was by far the easiest smoke I have ever done. I even ran errands while my pit was going. I had my daughter watch the Maverick while I was gone but she hummed right along steady as a rock. The shoulders turned out great! I must say it was nice getting to relax a little.
Sorry for the long-winded post but I thought I'd be as detailed as possible in case someone was interested.
