July 9 this year, I made my 5th trip to Texas to buy a smoker. This one is a Vault from Pitmaker.com. It's a big, insulated cabinet smoker. And she is pretty! And heavy, 925 pounds! She has 5 racks, 22 x 25, for a healthy 2,750 sq inches of cooking space. Here w are at the Pitmaker plant picking up Red!
And the obligatory photo op stop at Buc-ee's, the World's Premier Travel Stop Empire
My plan with this pit is to have a healthy size alternative cooker to so smaller cooks on the Trailer, that don't require the size of the big Myron Mixon. The added plus for the Cabinet smoker is that you don't have to tend the fire, like on the Stickburner.
Brought her home, followed the instructions given by the folks at Pitmaker, and our first cooks were underway! 3 briquites wide, stack wood chunks on top, and make an L. They told me that pre-heating the pit with a Weedburner was their recommended way to heat it up. I didn't have a weedburner at first, so I used the firebox to heat up, which takes a few hours. Anyway, here is the charcoal layout, with a 1/3 chimney of lit coals on the end of the fuse.
This is what the coals look like some time later, when the cook is done.
A pair of pork butts.
This is as far as I could open the ball valve, and with the amount of fuel pictured above, and a couple of briskets inside, would get too hot, and I'd have to clamp it down even more.
A rack of ribs. Please notice the near total absence of any pretty pink smoke ring.
The first cooks had too much heat, once the cooker got up to temp, which featured these negative consequences:
1. Radiant heat from the bottom which charred the bottom of the food.
2. Too much heat once the pit got hot, so I had to choke down the airflow to get the temps down.
3. Low airflow means smoldering fire. I hate smoldering fire. Thus, the flavor from the smoke was not that great.
So, after several cooks, I did a couple of things
A. Bought a weedburner to warm up the pit and do away with the over-heating at the beginning and some of the radiant heat problem
B. Started experimenting with different fuel amounts and layouts.
And the obligatory photo op stop at Buc-ee's, the World's Premier Travel Stop Empire
My plan with this pit is to have a healthy size alternative cooker to so smaller cooks on the Trailer, that don't require the size of the big Myron Mixon. The added plus for the Cabinet smoker is that you don't have to tend the fire, like on the Stickburner.
Brought her home, followed the instructions given by the folks at Pitmaker, and our first cooks were underway! 3 briquites wide, stack wood chunks on top, and make an L. They told me that pre-heating the pit with a Weedburner was their recommended way to heat it up. I didn't have a weedburner at first, so I used the firebox to heat up, which takes a few hours. Anyway, here is the charcoal layout, with a 1/3 chimney of lit coals on the end of the fuse.
This is what the coals look like some time later, when the cook is done.
A pair of pork butts.
This is as far as I could open the ball valve, and with the amount of fuel pictured above, and a couple of briskets inside, would get too hot, and I'd have to clamp it down even more.
A rack of ribs. Please notice the near total absence of any pretty pink smoke ring.
The first cooks had too much heat, once the cooker got up to temp, which featured these negative consequences:
1. Radiant heat from the bottom which charred the bottom of the food.
2. Too much heat once the pit got hot, so I had to choke down the airflow to get the temps down.
3. Low airflow means smoldering fire. I hate smoldering fire. Thus, the flavor from the smoke was not that great.
So, after several cooks, I did a couple of things
A. Bought a weedburner to warm up the pit and do away with the over-heating at the beginning and some of the radiant heat problem
B. Started experimenting with different fuel amounts and layouts.
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