My new smoker finally arrived last Sunday. It's a beast and beauty all at once! The shipper arrived at my work at 9:00am on Sunday, which means I had to schlep it up there to unlock the place. I didn't wrestle it home until Monday afternoon in the back of my Tacoma. Getting it off is a whole other story for another day. And I spent the rest of the week working on crafting a charcoal grate for inside the friebox, which was curiously absent. Unfortunately I maximized the grate to fill most of the bottom of the box but didn't account for the logisitics of getting it in, so it didn't fit. I'll modify it this coming week, so in the mean time I just laid a piece of expanded metal on an aluminum pan.

This Saturday finally afforded me the time to roll it out of the garage around back to work on seasoning it. I coated the inside of everything with Pam and fired it up to about 350-400 deg F for a couple of hours. Here she is in it's temporary location.



And here's a shot of the first small load of lump charcoal in the box:



Tragically I was shut out today due to rain. It has finally cleared now but it's a bit late for me to fire it up for the four test chickens I brined. They'll just have to continue resting in the fridge til tomorrow night after work, when I'll have to suck it up and pull off some evening smoking. Until then....

Flipper,

Well, congratulations on the arrival! Too bad on the rain, same storm is wrecking havoc on my weekend plans to get my yard and my Dad's cut, raked and trimmed! Oh well, it's let up enough that the dog is willing to go outside now.

That's a mighty fine looking smoker, can't wait to see the results of your efforts! I'm guessing you can handle quite a crowd with that size.

Thanks for the great photos!

Mike

Flipper ...

Congratulations on the new smoker ... nice.

Hey, don't smokers work in the rain too?

BG in WV

Hey, don't smokers work in the rain too?

BG in WV
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On that note, how well does the painted/welded steel hold up to rust when exposed to rain? Most of the ones I've seen at shows are just painted with grill paint, and I often see rust, especially around the welds. Or is this one powdercoated? Will you always store it inside? I'm assuming that although it's heavy, it's balanced to easily push it around? Again - can't wait to see it in extreme action!

Mike

I'm going to try and get some sort of cover for it. Since it's custom there is nothing fitted off the shelf that will totally cover it. I'll probably get the largest one I can find and tie it on somehow. And yes, it appears to be painted, hopefully primed as well. I wish I had room to keep it inside somewhere, but my garage is full of my truck and MC; the shed is full of mower and snowblower.

I smoked my first chickens last night. Sorry, no pics...I was not happy with the "over-smoking" of the skin that occurred. The meat was fantastic, though. It's going to take some fiddling to get the temperatures right. The larger firebox and thicker steel are factors I need to figure into the equation. I went at it using the same techniques I used with my old rig, which was much smaller and lighter. I'll get it eventually. I'll mess with more chickens before I jump to the more expensive ribs and butts. Stay tuned.

That thing looks awesome! Can I ask you where and how much? That's looks exactly what I have in mind as I am looking to find me a good smoker. You know...something to do lots of great smokin' and maybe tote it off to a couple cook-offs.

I am estimating something like that is going to be $1200-$2000 from start to finish.

Frickin' SWEET!!!