There's a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I've gotten used to all the work involved with the offset. Get's me out of my chair every half hour or so, but, I'm now keeping really steady (for me) temps. The other is, even if the power is out, or especially if that happens, I still want to be able to cook.
Honestly I'm at a point where I'm just tired of fixing stuff, and electronics will need fixing at some point.
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Well, up until a couple of years ago I had a gasser as well. It's pretty old now, and needs lots of parts to be safe and work well. I decided at the time that the risk of possibly blowing up my house was greater than it burning down from the "little bit of grease" that would build up. Of course this time, I almost got to use my fire extinguisher! At the moment, the smoker is the more pressing of the two. -
I have had my OKJ Highland fer in excess of 5 years,runnin; never had me any reason to be unhappy with it...
Longhorn's jest a touch bigger, is all; same difference, I'd haveta reckon... check my posts, or mebbe I can skeer ya up some, later; I have had total success, keepin 5°-10° degrees F, side to side, as evidenced by my pics...COS, indeed (Harrumph)
Last edited by Mr. Bones; July 6, 2021, 07:43 PM. -
Is there a reason why you are committed to offsets?
Same money can get you a far more enjoyable cooker like the Masterbuilt Gravity 560.
Or you can go for the Platinum rated OKJ Bronco if you want to stay with OKJ.Leave a comment:
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I'm not a fan of using the smoke chamber for grilling. If you grill that much, check out the Judge.
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About that OKJ Longhorn
Howdy everyone. So about a week ago I decided to use the main chamber in my CharGriller Pro to cook some burgers. Usually a couple or three times a year I'll actually have my fire in the main chamber instead of the firebox, and while I will get a bit of a fire now and then from the old grease, this time was a bit more extreme.
About 2 hours extreme to be a little more precise. I think the only thing that really got toasted (besides some hair on my arm) to the point of damage was the thermometer, as it doesn't have a reading past ~550F. While there is definitely some burnt off paint and a few scorch marks on the wood working area, my only real concern is there was a painted area on the inside of the main chamber that was part of that whole roasting experience. And because of all the soot and stuff, can't really tell if that started peeling or not. Which means I'm not so convinced it's safe to use for cooking since I went way beyond the mfg recommended heat tolerance. How do I know if it's still safe?
So, now not so sure I should trust doing more smokes on this, I'm thinking of upgrading to the OKJ Longhorn since it's got a few extras. Things like tuning plates, thicker steel, stuff like that. The one thing I'm not so crazy about at the moment is ceramic coated grates instead of cast iron. But besides that, well, it also being out of stock everywhere near me, what has your experience been?
Obviously I'll be going new, so the questions are more about is it worth the money? I can't afford the higher end stuff, and really would like to stick with the offset types.
Any and all advice appreciated. Sorry for taking so long to say "I'm thinking about getting a new smoker...".
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