1st Trial Run on OKJ - Pros and Woes

[JeffJ]

I picked up my OKJ Highland last week Monday - it is a birthday gift from my mom - and attempted to season it half-assed. It wasn't successful. Between the near-constant rain and our calendar, tonight was the first chance I had to give it a thorough test-run...

First, I sprayed the entire interior with cooking spray - oiled it. I rotated the cooking grate 90 degrees so that it was raised up from the bottom of the fire chamber. I put Weber chimney baskets at both ends to create a "lane" in the middle. I lit roughly 40 briquettes and poured them into the lane. I then placed 3 fist sized pecan chunks and the leftover split from my first attempt that only partially burned. After everything caught I propped open to loading door with a pair of tongs and left the intake vent wide open with the intake valve fully open.



I removed one of the baskets so I had more room to work with and I always kept an unlit split in the firebox to ensure quick lighting when adding to the fire. In this pic above it can be seen in the bottom right corner of the firebox.

The beginning of all of this went extremely well. I was able to hit over 300 degrees for a few minutes (I was hoping to be able to build a big enough and hot enough fire to cook a chicken breast after a couple of hours - nope!

This required far more tending than I'm accustomed to. I'm used to the steady, reliable burn of charcoal on a fuse or minion. Granted, I'm a newbie to this and am just learning my new cooker and more variable-laden type of fire management. Fortunately, I've been researching this for a while and have watched a bunch of Youtube videos on this, plus I've begun following stick-burning threads at The Pit.

From what I've gathered, an oxygen-rich, hot fire is the goal. From there, temps are controlled not by restricting airflow, like when using charcoal, but by controlling the size of the fire. With this approach, the first 2-3 hours went well. I had everything open a bit more than I wanted, which was inefficient with the fuel as some of the heat bled out where I didn't want it to (see pic below) but I was able to run in a range of 230-280 for 2 hours and the only time I started to get smoke to sort of billow white was when I closed the intakes down beyond what is pictured right below:



This is how the fire looked just before I closed it down to this extent:



Up until this point, everything was a success. I worked the fire like I would if it was a campfire or in a fireplace - moving the wood around, knocking off ash, maximizing airflow, etc.

I wanted to build a healthy bed of hot wood coals so the fire could continually build on itself. This is where the "woes" came in. With that singular grate, my bed of hot coals fell through.

I really don't want to drop money into a wood/coal basket. The OKJ comes with 3 charcoal grates on the cooking chamber side that are intended to hold charcoal if you want to use it as a grill. Nice, to be sure, but I'm so loaded up with actual grills that I'd never use this rig in that capacity. I'm wondering if I can place one over the fire grate to create a tighter bottom so that the bed of coals doesn't fall through.

When I first posted about getting this rig, Bones encouraged me to IM him regarding the nuances as he has one and is pretty well versed with it. I will be doing that, but any other tips/advice I get will be much appreciated.

Please note: My trial-run was successful enough that I'm comfortable doing a leg of lamb this weekend for a family party - it's a short enough cook that my bed of hot coal problem won't factor-in.

Mr. Bones

[NapMaster]

I'm of no help but will be following in earnest. Mr. Bones is the master. I'm sure he'll chime in soon.

[Mr. Bones]

He sure enough will, after some sleep, an a shift at work, unless sooner becomes possible.

No master, but certainly willin to share what I know...

[mrteddyprincess]

This is a pic of my old offset I cooked on for years. When I finally learned to control the temps my solution was a box fan sitting about six inches from the intake vent on a make shift table. I used one chimney of charcoal at a time with wood chunks. I could angle the fan more directly into the vent when I wanted to raise the temp, and then put the fan on low and begin angling the fan so less air was entering the intake vents for a constant temp. I did cooks with consistent temps anywhere from 225 to 325 F and could maintain pretty consistent temps for up to 8 hrs. Mind you, I had to eventually add additional chimneys of charcoal and more wood chunks throughout the burn, and I was going through a lot of fuel for an 8 hr cook, but the temp control was there. Best wishes to you! You'll have that thing mastered in no time! (And by no means am I suggesting this is the only solution--just sharing what worked for me.)

[JeffJ]

That's a clever solution and it's something that crossed my mind as I was struggling a bit to get the fire to sufficiently breathe.

[mrteddyprincess]

There are automatic fan controls for this purpose, too. I was just too cheap to invest in one of those systems. The limitations of this set up are that windy conditions could knock the fan over, and that at cold weather temps too much heat radiated away and I couldn't really cook below about 55 F. A welding blanket over the top helped, but wasn't a complete solution for cold weather cooking. I used a thermocouple at the spot where my meat was cooking and adjusted the fan to the desired temp.

[PBCDad]

I haven't done it, but a bunch of people on a Jambo forum recommend getting a cheap sheet of expanded metal mesh and setting that on the fire grate. Not enough to choke off airflow, but enough to keep small coals in place so you can be more efficient with your wood. Certainly a cheaper option than just about anything else, wouldn't hurt to try if you are having issues.

I'm surprised you aren't able to get above 300, most stick burners like to settle in around 275 from what I understand. It might just need a bigger fire than you are thinking. The firebox looks fairly small, so it may just be a perception issue with how big you think the fire should be vs. how big it actually needs to be to get higher temps.

[jfmorris]

This is exactly what I was going to suggest, so I will SECOND this. A hardware store ought to have some expanded metal - just cut a piece the size of your grate, and drop it on there before you build the next fire.

[castironchris]

I don't know if this will help at all and I certainly haven't tried it since I don't have a stick burner anymore but I just saw this yesterday.

https://youtu.be/SlcV7hVHdd0

My cheapo New Braunfels offset that I used to have I fought the temp forever but I never tried the technique in the video.

[jfmorris]

JeffJ I will second the motion from PBCDad to get a piece of expanded metal and just cut it to the size/shape you want, and drop it onto the firebox grate. That is what most charcoal baskets are made out of anyway. A sheet of that at Home Depot will set you back $10.

That said, the fire control issues you are seeing is why I tend to run my offset from mostly charcoal, with a little bit of wood for flavor, versus straight wood. My smoker is about 750 square inches (24 x 36 inch body with a 22x34 main grate), and I can get it to 250-275 with just charcoal, but not much hotter. Running a long smoke of butts or briskets with charcoal and wood chunks, requires tending the fire every 1-2 hours, and maybe 2-3 if I do a minion of sorts on the initial setup. If I use just wood, I cannot leave the smoker for more than about 30 to 45 minutes, ever.

It's fun to smoke on an offset, but unless I just NEED the capacity, I won't do much longer than a 5-6 hour rib cook on it these days. The kettle + SNS has just spoiled me too much with ease of fire management. Especially once I added the Party Q. I've been tempted to try and modify my firebox to let me use a blower and temp controller on it, but that would only be useful, in my opinion, if using charcoal as the primary heat source, and not wood. Wood just needs tending, as you know from dealing with camp fires and fireplaces.

The last time I ran an overnight cook in my offset was October 2017, for my daughter's engagement party, when I stayed up with the smoker and 2 kettles to get 9 butts (74 pounds) done for the party.

[JeffJ]

I hear what you are saying, but the reason I wanted the offset is to cook exclusively with wood. If I'm going to cook with charcoal and a wood chunk I have 2 kettles, a PBC and a WSM I'll use for that type of cooking. The offset requires quite a bit of baby-sitting, moreso in my case due to my inexperience with it and that it's not a heavy-duty 1/4" thick offset, so temps aren't as stable.

[jfmorris]

Understood JeffJ, and I know you had other cookers. And I am sure once you tune and learn your new cooker, you will get the fire management thing down to where it is more predictable.

[JeffJ]

I like the idea expanded metal mesh. I really think fire management would have been easier if the hot coals had remained on the grate instead of falling through.

[jfmorris]

Yes - it will help. And I think it should be open enough still for most ash to fall through.

[Mr. Bones]

I like th idea of usin a heavy guage, non galvinated expanded mesh metal on yer fire grate...th stock one is really bad cheesy...I never used mine...made an expanded...

It lasted me while I searched fer a better, an more permanent solution, which I found:


Th expanded metal is a simpler, cheaper, more economical solution, but is also purty limited in lifespan.

I got mine from this man, in Austin, TX. It was $60, free ship, when he had a special. No more embers/coals fallin through th grate.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/113529356266

[Huskee]

Hack that table top up!

[Huskee]

I bought a wrought iron fireplace log grate to replace my firebox grate. I just set it right on the barrel bottom. Works well. Keeps things just high enough to be off the barrel bottom for air, yet close enough to the coals to keep the fire going good.

[Huskee]

To add to the above...

Similar to this, but the one I found the legs can be shortened, which I did.

[Craigar]

Did you also opt for the free grocery pickup?

[Huskee]

I sometimes get my wife to do that Craigar

[JeffJ]

Used it for the second time last night. Everything started off perfectly but I ran into some problems when I put a thicker split onto the fire. It burned great for a while but it just sort of stopped burning. I had to get really creative with a weed burner which isn't really doing things right. My current wood source is Walmart. They sell bags of hickory splits. The bag has various sized pieces of wood. The smaller pieces work great. The bigger pieces, not so much. I cooked a pork tenderloin last night and it came out great. Having said that, if I was doing a longer cook I'm not sure how well it would have gone given the fire problem I experienced.

Oh well. I might have to cut up the larger splits.

[jfmorris]

JeffJ I would recommend a splitter like the Kindling Cracker to split stuff into thinner pieces, and then maybe if you have a miter saw, just chop stuff in half on top of that, to get it down to "mini splits".

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/to...SABEgLAMfD_BwE

Long term you will want a wood source other than Walmart. You ought to be able to get a 1/2 cord of oak/hickory delivered for $100-ish. Maybe a lot less in your area.

[Huskee]

I agree the kindling cracker will be one of your best friends, along with a miter saw. Don't fret, you're in the process of learning your pit, which we all have to do. You'll learn exactly what length and what size splits you need to put on and when. All part of the process my friend! I got a fella near me who delivers a full size pickup truck box load (heaping) of quarter split and seasoned oak for 60 bucks. Now I consider that to be a heck of a good deal, and you may or may not find something similar in your area. But you're definitely going to want to get a source of wood like mentioned above.

[JeffJ]

Yeah, buying wood at Walmart was never part of the long-term plan. We had a party store a few miles away that sold splits (had them separated by size), but when I popped in this winter to ask them about it, they said they weren't doing it any more. Specifically, the organization that had been doing it wasn't going to set up shop there any more. I did get a card for that outfit and will probably give them a call pretty soon.