Old Country Gravity Smoker

[Blake]

I rented a U-Haul trailer with ramp. Guys at Academy loaded it. Unloading it by myself was easy, it rolled well.

[Bruce Z]

Yes, good smoke, very little baby sitting. Best of both worlds.

[texastweeter]

So far, are you still happy with this cooker?

[hawkdriver9]

sorry i meant to add this so you could see what i was talking about. this thing work like a champ and take 5 min to get the coals going, done!

MENSI 10 Jets Homemade Cast Iron Burner Assembly Flame Control System 41000 BTU with High Pressure Regulator with Hose

[hawkdriver9]

Amozon: MENSI 10 Jets Homemade Cast Iron Burner Assembly Flame Control System 41000 BTU with High Pressure Regulator with Hose

this might help you get the chute going quicker. this is what i use on my cabinet "vault" smoker, i put it under my charcoal basket. All you would have to do is put charcoal in the chute about 3 inches deep and put this burner under it, leave the top of the chute open and when the charcoal starts the chute is the same as charcoal chimney, add more charcoal. done

[Bruce Z]

So far placing the wood under the chute works well. I have read about adding wood to the charcoal but have not found it necessary. Dropping a basket of hot coals and then filling the chute did not work for me as I was left with the entire chamber filled with mostly unlit charcoal. I will check to see if foil pans will fit in the ash chamber, that might save some time on clean up. Thanks for your comments.

[hawkdriver9]

one idea i heard when using a gravity feed smoker was to NOT mix the wood in with the charcoal but put the wood under the charcoal shoot so the hot ash drops down on the wood and with the airflow it starts to make the wood burn and smoke, not sure how that would work if your using a fan and temp controller but its something to try

OH yeah and when lighting it, you might try adding a that basket of hot coals as you normally would dropping them into the shoot but put an old foil drip pan in the heat chamber under the shoot, the pan will catch all the stuff that falls through, you could even have your wood in the pan so the ash fall into it and catches the wood on fire at the same time,

[HawkerXP]

Don't stop! More, more, more!

[Bruce Z]

First long cook.. Changed my lighting technique. and used Weber starters placed on a 7 inch 15 oz. piece of seasoned oak. I closed the vents too soon so it took almost 2 hours to reach 250 degrees. Added another 7 oz about 2 hours into the cook.pound Pork Butt dry brined, injected with Myron Mixon hog injection, seasoned with his barbecue rub recipe and finished with his his hog glaze. Total time 7 hours most of the cook was just under 240 degrees, The result was excellent. I still tinker with the temperature, its not needed but I just can't help myself. I did learn to add a drip pan because without it requires a major cleanup. I did not close all the dampers fully and 26 hours later the smoker was still cooking. Lots of ash.

[Panhead John]

Thanks for posting this and keep up the good work! It seems there’s a lot of interest in these new gravity charcoal smokers and I can see why.

[Bruce Z]

First cook on the Gravity smoker. Based on the amount of charcoal that was list in the burn chamber during the seasoning, I filled the chute with charcoal and started the fire with Weber fire staters placed on a 6 inch piece of oak just under the unlit charcoal. It took a few tries but it eventually worked. After opening the exhaust and closing the burn chamber charcoal chute I waited for the temperature to hit 230 degrees. Then added the St. Louis ribs with Meat Heads Memphis rub. Total cook time was about 5 hours. I messed with the temperature just cause I could but never let it above 250. Wrapped at about 4 hours, a little late but lawn mowing got in the way of my time. End result was excellent color and bark. Almost too much smoke considering I never added anymore after the initial ignition to start the fire. I'm guessing 10 oz. tops. The flavor was really good, I think I can do better but these were the best ribs I have made in a long time.

[Bruce Z]

First I seasoned the smoker after spraying the entire inside with oil. I dumped a full basket of glowing coals into the charcoal shoot. Then added unlit charcoal on top of those and filled the chamber. Then opened the exhaust vent and the ball valve 100%. Closed the burn chamber and let her rip for 6 hours. After the burn I closed both the exhaust and the ball valve to stop the fire. The next morning I opened the burn chamber and found it to be totally filled with charcoal. Some partially burned, some not. I found that confusing so I think I will try a different light method on the first cook. At least 1/3 of the bag of charcoal was still intact.

[tenphases]

1st off, Congrats! Great cooker! I'm sure your going to produce terrific Que. When I was looking at Gravity Feds I considered the Old Country but it was to far of a trek for me. One thing that I heard is that the top of the smoke chamber emits a lot of heat that makes cooking on the bottom two grates more of a challenge. There is a YouTube channel JG-with a series on the Old Country Gravity and he created a mod using two fire brick's to fix this problem: https://youtu.be/tMmCkScVrJM.

Now get er dirty!!

[TripleB]

I’ve cooked on a gravity smoker a few times in the past (but not an Old Country). Great smokers and really hold they’re temp well. I do have a recommendation and that is to run it a couple of times without food to get use to it. The gravity smoker I used, the fuel is in a metal chute. So you put in lite charcoal and then wood. If you put in too much wood, the wood won’t catch and will smolder and create black smoke (incomplete combustion) - very bad. Since the fuel is in a metal chute, very hard to retrieve. This happened to our team during a competition. Fortunately the brisket and butt were wrapped, but the chicken came out black….but won first place! Just kidding …..dead last.

just some insight FWIW. Have fun

[Greygoose]

Nice lookin’ ,,,,
when do we start lookin’ fer smoke signals ?