Tips and Suggestions - Old Country Gravity Smoker

[@pibble3962]

Wonderful video. Thanks for sharing what you’ve learned. Your wife’s commentary added great perspective.

[@searspring]

Couple of tips. 1. leave the hopper door open when lighting the fire from ash box. Just use about 6 inches of charcoal. Once it's going good add more charcoal and close the hopper door. It will come up to temp way faster. 2. Make protection for the hopper door and your seal. Cut aluminum pan bottom bigger then door, wrap in foil. Replace foil as needed. Will make seal last alot longer. 3. I get better smoke from ash box fire then charcoal hopper. I have lit 1/2 full charcoal chimney and dumped into ash box then added mini splits. Ran for 2 1/2 hours then added my charcoal to hopper. 3. Thermoworks smoke x4 or signals with billows. Make this smoker way out perform just the valve alone. 4. Don't blast your paint at ash door with flame tower. It will cause it to rust.

[@ColdWarBarbecue]

Great tips. I have not tried building my fire in the ash box, I guess almost sort of running it like an offset. Also appreciate the info about the seal. And I'm still looking at trying the Thermoworks for this. Thanks!

[@edgewater210]

Thank you for posting this video. I am currently conducting research trying to select a new smoker. My current smoker is a stainless steel drum and I also use a Weber Summit Kettle (Kamado) for all my grilling duties. Previously owned a pellet smoker and parted company with it because the food, to my wife and me, tasted similar to what we could have cooked in an oven. I have eliminated stick burners from consideration as the attention required and learning curve both seem to be quite high. So, I am left considering a gravity fed smoker or one of the new highly touted pellet grills (Yoder, Lone Star and Camp Chef). I am a fisherman and smokers appear to be like boats in that there is not one perfect smoker (LOL)! Sorry for being long winded but am trying to avoid a buying mistake. Based on these comments do you believe a gravity fed cooker will provide more smoke favor than I achieve on the drum smoker? Thanks in advance.

[@spicelandsmokeandsear]

I’m really enjoying the gravity cabinet content. I think a lot of the pros and cons of that unit are similar to my Bronco pro drum in that they both regulate by “suffocating” a charcoal fire. My drum makes great food, but you can easily over-smoke it if you choke it too much. As always, thanks for the content and keep it coming.

[@ColdWarBarbecue]

I believe you’re correct. Generally I try to be moderate with the smoke output, but this time we ramped it up. Actually pretty happy with the results. Thanks for continuing to watch!

[@milo9422]

Those things lookd great and i could see that the test subject realy was enjoying them!!! On the subject of can there be to much smoke? I can say from my experance Yes there can! Nothing like putting in all the work only to wind up with somthing that taste like its been in a house fire. I think that weather conditions could play a roll in this problem too, because sometimes there seems to be no reason when you took all the steps you took before and wind up with less that favorable results. Good job with the ribbs!!!

[@ColdWarBarbecue]

Wind is generally the ultimate enemy of a backyard barbecuer. I have a bit better luck with the gravity smoker because of the smaller air intake, but there are days when it’s just too windy even for that.

[@milo9422]

Double smoking a ham I had to spiral cut myself on the kettle grill today! No butter will be spared in the glaze recipe!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

[@ColdWarBarbecue]

I actually had some hams to smoke, as well. Alas, most of them were intended for other people. We did have one for my family, as well as an excellent smoked turkey. I stay pretty busy this time of year. Hope you had a great holiday!

[@donm3671]

What smoker is that? It looks great.

[@ColdWarBarbecue]

This is the Old Country Gravity Smoker. We did a review on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJ3IkGR5qsxradU Basically, you get a lot of the benefits of a pellet smoker (set it and forget it) but a lot of the flavor of an offset. Great smoker!

[@donhgr]

If you would take better care of your cooker it would take better care of you

[@ColdWarBarbecue]

Hard to argue against this point :)