Well a friend of mine sent me a link to this website and D.L. Whiteheads SJS smoker. I thought that looked like a good idea. My smoker has a few mods like a one piece heat shield. It is made from an aluminum baking sheet.



Then I cut the grate with a pair of bolt cutters. The tabs at he end were bent to make the grill fit tight.



Then I made a charcoal chimney starter out of some poultry wire and a empty can of baked beans. Its max capacity is 9 coals.



After a couple of test runs on Saturday I decided to smoke a 3lb. Boston Butt. This is about the max capacity of this little joe. Ignore the temp gauge I fitted to it, did not work right.



It took about 5 hours to get to 180 degrees internal temp.



After letting it rest it pulled apart real nice. Very tasty and better than the Q you can get around here.

Welcome Brian, heck of a first post!!
Great looking setup, pics, and pulled pork!!

Don't feel bad if you only get a few comments, since most members don't venture this far down the site.
Next time feel free to post your cook to the barbecue or grilling thread.
I'm sure the 'top feeders' will love your setup and cooks!

Again, welcome to the board!

Brian - great job and very inventive!

I opted to do the tamale pot mid-section mod for my SJS. I can get a little bigger butt - maybe 5 - 6 lbs on each of the two grates.

These little Mini Kettles and the Mini Smokers folks are making out of them truly are amazing.

Thanks for posting. I would love to know the dimensions of your baffle / heat shield. Looks like a great Sunday afternoon project!

Keep on Smokin'

Pat

great mods ! gives me some ideas to mess around with. more the merrier. but what are the two holes in the sheet bottom and what are the vise grips doing ?

Thanks guys for the kind words. Here are the dimensions for the baffle. I first made a template out of some cardboard. Then traced the outside of the charcoal grate and across the outside of the third bar that goes all the way across. This was 9 1/4" on mine. Then measured 5 7/8". Bend at 4" and where the square meets the circle.



The bolts on the bottom keep the shield in place.



The vice grips are there to adjust the bottom vents. I wanted to BBQ and not drill more holes.



I started it with 12 unlit bricks and 9 lit ones. For a 5 hour smoke I had to add bricks as I went along. Next on the mods list will be an ash sweeper, even though a long screwdriver worked fine.

nice trick on attaching the baffle to the grate. could just add a bolt to the lower vent to move it. on my mini smoker i had issues with the ash choking the vents so i got a can 2x4 and drilled a bunch of holes into the lower part(would be the upper part when its installed upside down)and i put this over the lower vent holes. it works perfectly. the air coming in is almost self cleaning.

I picked up a replacement bottom for a 22" "Old Smokey" smoker today at Academy and will try to cut it out for this mod sometime this weekend. Like George, I have a WSM-mini-Smoker and I used a similar method to keep ash from choking out the fire by covering the vents. I used a stainless steel puppy bowl that I bought for 25 cents at a yard sale and drilled four holes in it that mirror the four holes in the bottom vent.

I sit the bowl over the vent so that the holes are aligned - (actually, I did that by accident) - and learned that even if the ash gets up the holes and falls through the holes IF the holes in the bowl are lined up with the holes in the vent, the ask falls straight through the holes in the vent and onto the ash catcher below!

I've got some pictures that I will post eventually.

Nice job on the Mod!

Pat

Brian that looks great.

Nice work!

Nice mod!! May have to give that a try! Cool thermo mod too!

I also have a tamale pot/mini-wsm. Built it with my daughter. These little guys are great fun! Thanks for sharing!

Great post Brian! I am impressed with the work you did with the SJ and like the chimney as well! Great post first or not! Thanks for sharing!

Ok guys - made my template and cut the thin sheet metal I had in the garage (the bottom of the Ole Smokey I bought for the project is going to require some better metal cutting tools than I have.) Brining a couple of large boneless, skinless chicken breasts now. Will start the experiment in a few minutes!

Like days when my wife and daughters have other things to do - leaving me free to play with grills and smokers. Butt on the WSM, too!

Pat

Most excellent post! I will be trying this for my trip to ocean city next month as I won't have enough room for the bullet but i'll have room for a smokey joe!

Great mod Brian !! just what I was looking for.
Just 1 question, what is the distance ( as seen on your cardboard )from the left egde till the first folding line ?
Thing is that I have a SJS at my vacation address and want to prefab this mod at home, so I can't measure anything.
Thanks,
Frank

Well the distance as measured on mine is 7 15/16". I used the 3rd bar in as my mark. The charcoal grate is 10.5" in diameter. I am glad other people are making this mod but I would like to hear how they worked. Monday I am going to try beef ribs on this thing and maybe a few ATBs.

You will certainly get results and pics from me.
but don't hold your breath, I have a lousy internet/bandwith in Turkey so it may take a month.

Howdy hi Brian,

Somehow, I missed your posting 'til recently. It looks like you planned and executed a very good design!

I have been planning something similar since I saw Jim Lampe's post.

I'm still smoking using my cobbled-up SJS on a regular basis. Right now, as I type, I have a small eye-of-the-round roast smoking. I purchase much of the meat I smoke on Smokey Joe from a small, local neighborhood grocery store. They usually have smaller cuts of meat suitable for smoking on Smokey Joe--just right for wifey and me when we dine alone.

The only thing that still vexes me is the ash build-up. Yes, it's pretty easy to poke down the ashes with a screwdriver or other utensil. But, it would be nice to have a more elegant solution. I have something in mind that I hope to try sometime in the (near?) future.

Good job! I hope you enjoy smoking on your Smokey Joe as much as I do.

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Well Brian this mod certainly is a winner.
I can now do a 3 lbs chicken and some veggies in my SJS.
Here some pic's as promised. And my bottom vent handle.

frank, what/where did ya get that little rail thing from ? is that a wok thing ?

yes George, that is from a wok

Frank, nice looking mod glad you like it. No I gotta go hit the wok isle at wally world.