British BBQ Society Forums

Hi Everyone,

I used to have a big brick pit in the garden, but I recently got a used New brunfels cheap simple offset smoker cheap off gumtree. We had a go with it with no mods, it worked but it was very uneven, and it was very hard to keep a consistent temp and a good draw through it.

Im modifying it now and there is one thing that really needs doing and im hoping I can help other owners of the same smoker to get theirs performing better.

The door in the side of the fire box is rather ill fitting. It allows air in and heat out all around the door, where it dosn't quite meet the cutout in the side of the chamber. This is a pain in the arse for keeping the air flow right.

I am laser cutting a steel frame that im going to weld inside the chamber so there is a 10-15mm lip inside the opening for the door to rest on. I will stick self adhesive fibreglass seal tape to the edge of the door so it seals properly, and use a really nice toggle latch clamp to hold the door shut. Its going to be really neat.

So what i was going to offer was to make these steel plates for other people. I think its one of the first fundamental mods that should be done, we did some trials today taping the cracks up with foil tape and it makes a huge difference. I managed to keep one chimney of cheap tesco briquettes running at 130 degrees for about 2-3 hours, with a really good strong flow of air naturally running through it.

So, does anyone have one of these smokers, and would you like one of these seal plates? They are about 30 quid.


Pete.
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Hi. I have a New Braunfels Hondo...bought about 3 weeks ago. A slightly different model to yours but essentially very similar.

Have noticed the door isn't flush to the side of the firebox but hadn't thought about mods as yet.

I'll keep it in mind but giving the pit a run on the weekend to test temps again using mostly wood as I found cheap briquettes produce a poor dirtier burn.

Hi KerryM,

This is perfect, we can mod together!!

I taped all around the seals with foil tape (including around the door) and the change in behaviour of the smoker is remarkable. Before, the whole smoker sort of sat there with smoke pouring out of all the cracks like a building on fire. There was no real suction by the coals and no real flow at the chimney. Now with all the cracks sealed the chimney fires a really nice column of smoke up and you can feel a draught of air being drawn in by the fire, so the 'draw' that people talk about is definitely there.

You really must seal the doors on your smoker its very easy to do and it makes a massive massive difference.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140649326040? ... 1439.l2649

This is the tape I used. I find that applying tape to both surfaces works best so the sealed gap is two layers of tape together. I have placed it around the top door on the firebox and as soon as the postman comes in the morning, im going to put it around the main cooking chamber lid. The tape on the firebox hatch is holding up fine, its not even gone brown, its clearly very high temp tolerant.

There was significant leakage between the firebox and the main chamber too in my smoker. To fix this I took the firebox off, and taped around the hole with the fibreglass tape. I then taped the same path around the hole on the main chamber and remounted it. When I did the bolts up it compressed the fibre tape and sealed the gaps.

The other thing you should do is block up the gap behind the chimney. I used foil tape, but i guess you could probably just stuff foil in the gap until its closed. When I convert the smoker to reverse flow im gonna weld the gap up anyway.


The other thing you should do is turn the grate in the firebox sideways. This raises the grate up, as it naturally sits higher sideways, and it keeps the coals out of the ash. Briquettes, cheap and expensive produce a lot of ash and the last thing you want is your coals to drown in the ash after a few hours (this happened on a test smoke). The smoker comes with three of these grills so you can use them in the main cooking chamber for normal charcoal grilling. I bent the edge up on one of them in the press brake and put it at the front so there is a wire lip that stops coals falling out when you open the door.

The other thing you should do is extend the chimney down, I did this with a bean can, cut both ends off then cut up its length with some tinsnips or similar and roll it tight and shove it up the chimney inside. Make the bean can level with the cooking grid. It helps hold the heat in. Its messy, and again once I get the chimney out to convert it to reverse flow il try and find some pipe of a matching diameter and weld it on for a better fix.

Today I ran one chimney full of cheap tesco briquettes in the fire box. No attention at all, no opening the lids I just left them. At one point I knocked the grate and the ash on the coals fell off so the coals woke up and got hot for a bit, you can see this in the graph below.

This is only maybe a quarter of the coals you would use if you were running the smoker properly so this is a good sign that it gets that hot for that long. The numbers along the bottom are number of seconds and the numbers up the side are degrees C.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 6600_o.jpg


Pete

Hi Guys, I came across these offset smoker mods on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okpmVCth2RI which I thought I would share with you. He has some of the mods mentioned here in your thread as well as some others which I thought you may find interesting if you haven't already come across them.

There is also this that has some decent mods on too

http://www.amazingribs.com/tips_and_tec ... okers.html

Hi Everyone,

Laser cut this plate which will be welded inside the firebox to provide something for the door to butt up and seal against.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 6528_o.jpg

Also got some cam lock latches today to hold the lids down, and some more fibreglass tape.

I also got a bit of steel to cut the baffle out of. Its 3mm thick, maybe too thick to cut with a grinder. Might have to draw it on in pen and cut it out with a plasma cutter when I get the chance... Hmmm.

Hhhhmmm laser cut one piece then thinking about using a plasma cutter go on admit it you did metalwork at school!!
Nice ideas btw

Pfft, things you learn in school are useless in the 'real world', the best place to learn actual useful skills is youtube hahahaha.

Petesmeat wrote:the best place to learn actual useful skills is youtube hahahaha.

LOL

Hi Everyone,

Just fitted the cam lock latches to the smoker main chamber. The fibreglass seal tape meant that the lid does not close fully on its own, but when the cam locks are done up, it squeezes the lid tight and compresses the fibreglass seal very nicely. I cant imagine any smoke getting out of this now, and as the thign heats up and expands, the latches should keep the whole thing sealed.

The latches were 8 quid each, and took about half an hour to install. Id thoroughly recommend doing this along with the fibreglass seal if you have one of these smokers.

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