Big Joe III
Big Green Egg lg
Grill Dome lg (at camp and it sucks!)
Gas:
Modern Home Products WNK
RecTeq Matador w/WOK
Blackstsones (at home & camp)
Yakatori: Konro XL
Electronics/Tools:
FireBoard - Original, II, and Spark
Fans - Pit Viper, Pit Bull, FireBoard
Temp measurement - Thermapens (all), DOT, timers, . . .
KJ rotisseries (L and XL)
Lots of cast iron, woks, etc.
GrillGrates® and SearMagic®
Sous Vide Water Immersion Oven
Kindling crackers (at home & camp), axes - Gransfor, other favs
Just like most everyone here, a lot of other stuff!
Lone Star Grillz 24x48 Adjustable Charcoal Grill and Smoker
I ordered one of these from Lone Star Grillz. I know there are a few owners here and I have a couple of questions for you.
Do you find the SS side shelf worth the additional cost?
Do any of you have fan ports on your pit and if so, can you give me some feedback on how the performance is with a temperature control system such as FireBoard?
Lonestar Grillz 24x36 offset smoker, grill, w/ main chamber charcoal grate and 3 tel-tru thermometers - left, right and center
Yoke Up custom charcoal basket and a Grill Wraps cover.
22.5 copper kettle w/ SnS, DnG, BBQ vortex, gasket and stainless steel hinge kit.
Napoleon gas grill (soon to go bye bye) rotting out.
1 maverick et-733 digital thermometer - black
1 maverick et-733 - gray
1 new standard grilling remote digital thermometer
1 thermoworks thermopen mk4 - red
1 thermoworks thermopop - red
Pre Miala flavor injector
taylor digital scale
TSM meat grinder
chefs choice food slicer
cuisinhart food processor
food saver vacuum sealer
TSM harvest food dehydrator
Smokin-It 3D
Weber Kettle with an SNS
Masterbuilt kettle that I call the $30 wonder grill
Bullet by Bull Grills gasser
Anova WiFi sous vide machine
Thermoworks Thermapen and Chef Alarm
I only dream that I have smokers like these, so, I am highly qualified to speak on this
Any cooker that I have, it has been helpful to have some type of area to place items next to, whether it’s a table or built in shelf. I would imagine this would be great to have built in.
congrats on the new smoker! Can’t wait to see the pics!
Heh. This cooker is currently #1 on my wish list for my dream outdoor kitchen and of course it will be built in (they do offer that option, by the way).
I agree with barelfly. Most cookers I can think of benefits from a side shelf. It’s almost a must have, for me anyway. How much extra $ was your shelf?
You are going to love the cooker, congrats on the purchase.
I have an insulated cabinet of theirs and added the comp cart which has a shelf and do not regret it at all. Very handy.
Last edited by ofelles; February 10, 2021, 09:59 PM.
Any kind of table is well worth it. They get used a lot. Weather it is attached to your grill or not.
Now about the air controller.
Air controllers work very well with charcoal or briquettes. I don't think they would be useful for a wood burner. Because wood isn't supposed to be choked down to much. Charcoal is great though.
But I don't know your grill.
Edit:
After this week end cook, I think I would like to try the air controller with my wood burner. Since we adjust air flow with the intake vent, it wouldn't be any different using a controller maybe any way.
So let's give it a try. You wood burners chime in please.
Last edited by Joetee; January 11, 2021, 05:27 AM.
LSG Adjustable Grill/Smoker, MAK Pellet Grill, Large BGE with Several Attachments from the Ceramic Grill Store, Weber Gasser, Cast Iron Pans & Griddle, Grill Grates, Mostly Thermoworks Thermometers, Avova SV Stick, BBQ Guru Controller and Fan
I ordered one of these LSG 24x48 Adjustable Charcoal Grill and Smoker the end of October. I did order the shelf and fan ports. At that time I did pm with AZ Fogey who happens to have one and likes it a lot. Good luck with your decision.
Alphonse I've been cooking on this model almost every day since the middle of March 2020. Yes, I ordered fan ports. I have a handle on the left side and a table on the right. If I had known that I was never going to move the BBQ, I would have ordered two tables instead of the handle. With the amount of food this thing can cook, your really need all the room you can get. My table is pretty much taken up with a timer, a Fireboard 2 control head and its associated probe wires, power wire to the Pit Bull fan, and the power supply wire.
The Fireboard system is terrific on both long and short cooks. You don't really need it once you figure out your vent settings, but if you start the fan going while you're lighting the charcoal with the vents wide open, the pit comes to temp in 20-25 minutes, rather than 40-45 minutes. At 50° or so before the desired pit temp is reached, if you then set your vents to accurate pre-determined settings, the fan may not run again or run very little. This is the chart of a typical cook.
You can see the fan running strong, building up the temp. The dip is me opening the lid and searing the meat with charcoal grate set up just under the cooking grate. Then the lid is closed and the pit temp pushes through a preset pit temp of 235° because I've used oil as an accelerant to sear the meat quickly, and there's just too much heat generated to stop at the preset temp. I know that's going to happen and, when it does, I just reset the pit temp to 250°. If I had opened the cool side exhaust vent another 1/4" or so, the fan would never have come on again. Here is how the cook came out.
One thing you'll need to order for sure is one of their charcoal baskets for longer cooks, and the rubber mat they sell is good quality. Get the big one.
This pit is a beast. It weighs over 400 lbs. It will most likely be delivered to your garage, so plan in advance how you're going to move it where you want it to live. The 8" wheel option is a bit of a help. In our case, our side yards are typical Arizona gravel and there was no way we would push the pit through that. We ended up taking it through the house and out the sliding door to the back patio. Clearance through that door was less than an inch, so measure carefully if that's what you need to do.
Feel free to PM me with any other questions you have. You are probably feeling a little trepidation now that you've spent all that money on your pit, but don't worry, you've made a great choice, and you're going to love cooking on this thing.
Last edited by AZ Fogey; January 17, 2021, 08:13 AM.
AZ, thanks for the very informative post! I ordered it with the 8" wheels. I will move the pit in and out of the storage lane of pits I have but it is all paved and under cover.
Great tip on the extra table. I will likely add the other. I did order it with two fan ports.
Big Joe III
Big Green Egg lg
Grill Dome lg (at camp and it sucks!)
Gas:
Modern Home Products WNK
RecTeq Matador w/WOK
Blackstsones (at home & camp)
Yakatori: Konro XL
Electronics/Tools:
FireBoard - Original, II, and Spark
Fans - Pit Viper, Pit Bull, FireBoard
Temp measurement - Thermapens (all), DOT, timers, . . .
KJ rotisseries (L and XL)
Lots of cast iron, woks, etc.
GrillGrates® and SearMagic®
Sous Vide Water Immersion Oven
Kindling crackers (at home & camp), axes - Gransfor, other favs
Just like most everyone here, a lot of other stuff!
AZ Fogey
Could you comment on what you have learned about positioning of the vents on the ACG&S? I am sure it depends on your specific cook and objectives but it would be great to get some insights on it here.
Some context to the question - on my LSG offset, the exhaust is always full open and I throttle with intake air. The ACG&S has no stack per se, has two exhausts and two separate fireboxes.
Thanks for all the great insights thus far.
Last edited by Alphonse; January 17, 2021, 07:56 AM.
Big Joe III
Big Green Egg lg
Grill Dome lg (at camp and it sucks!)
Gas:
Modern Home Products WNK
RecTeq Matador w/WOK
Blackstsones (at home & camp)
Yakatori: Konro XL
Electronics/Tools:
FireBoard - Original, II, and Spark
Fans - Pit Viper, Pit Bull, FireBoard
Temp measurement - Thermapens (all), DOT, timers, . . .
KJ rotisseries (L and XL)
Lots of cast iron, woks, etc.
GrillGrates® and SearMagic®
Sous Vide Water Immersion Oven
Kindling crackers (at home & camp), axes - Gransfor, other favs
Just like most everyone here, a lot of other stuff!
Sorry to wear you out AZ Fogey but a member here asked in another thread about the durability/robustness of the lid hinges on this pit (comment added to post #3). Can you share your impressions?
Last edited by Alphonse; January 17, 2021, 11:16 AM.
I posted an answer with photos on the other thread, but no, there's no problem with hinges or the springs. As you well know, with your offset, durability/robustness is the hallmark of LoneStar Grillz pits.
Alphonse
A lot will depend on how much charcoal you light at the start of the cook, and whether or not you use a fan control. When the pit is coming up to temp without a fan, and shooting for 225° the pit is a lot like a kamado with the intake open about an inch and the exhaust opened maybe 3/4". Also like a kamado, the vent openings need to be reduced when pit temp is 30-40° below the desired cook temp to avoid an overshoot. When you look at the chart in my previous post on this page, you can see that the pit temp held steady at 250° without the fan and that's with air entering though the 1" fan port, and the exhaust vent set at about 1 1/4". I'll address vent position when using the fan because that's how I cook 99% of the time.
For me, the fire is always in the left chamber, so the vents in play are the intake vent on the firebox door, the fan port, and the exhaust vent on the right side of the hood. I normally use one fire starter and then light 6 more chunks with a propane torch. To get the pit up to temp, both vents are wide open and the fan is running at 100%. As the pit comes to temp, the firebox vent is closed completely. For 225-250° the exhaust vent is open about 1 1/4". For 275° it's open about 1 3/4". The upper grate on the cool side runs about 50° hotter the the lower one, so for hot and fast, I unusually use the upper grate. For 350° on the upper grate, exhaust is opened 2 1/4 to 2 1/2". There have been very few times, especially if I've reused lump without any fresh added, that I've had to crack the firebox vent and inch or so.
That's another joy about this pit, like a kamado, you can always reuse the old charcoal. When the charcoal burns down small enough, it will fall through the expanded metal charcoal grate down into the removable ash pan from which it will get tossed into our ash can the next day.
After a couple of cooks, you'll find that temp control on this Lonestar Grillz AG&S is repeatedly reliable and easy to master. The cook chart in my previous post on this page shows steady state 250° with the fan off. The air intake is through the 1" fan port and the exhaust is set to about 1 1/2". If I wanted to bore you, I could show you almost 300 cook charts with target pit temp pretty much flatlined.
Thanks AZ! I knew I would get a thoughtful answer and it is appreciated. Glad I ordered mine with the fan ports. Surprisingly I can get my 20 x 42 to run flat as a kamado with lump and a fan. BTW, I do like me a FireBoard!
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