I have been wanting to add my HeaterMeter blower to my SJ mini wsm for quite a while now... Overall the stock SJ mini wsm is fantastic, but I find it very difficult to control temps on windy days and it seems to take a long time to come to temp (225-250). So yesterday my son and I went to Home Depot to get all of the parts needed to complete the job.
After walking around for an hour here is what we came up with.
Brinkmann basting mop/bowl
3/4 Copper male pressure cup
3/4 Copper female pressure cup
3/4 Copper pipe 2 feet
7/8 rubber plumbing washers
The mop/bowl combo is just larger than the air intake on the S.J. Gold. It also has an handle which I used to replace the bolt that I was using to control the air vent.
The first thing that I did was drill a hole using a 7/8 hole saw into the side of the Brinkmann bowl. This was for the male end of the connector to pass through into the intake chamber. The female connector completes the connection and on both sides I placed 2 rubber washers to help seal the rough hole.
Next, the Brinkmann bowl was attached to the SJ using the tabs on the stock air intake. I bent the tabs to 90* and used 1/4 bolts to fasten the bowl to the intake. It is not a perfect seal between the intake chamber and the bottom of the SJ, but the intake chamber can easily removed for cleaning/high heat grilling if needed.
I am using the same fan that is part of the hardware build list for the stock HeaterMeter. I hammered down one end of the pipe to fit inside of the exhaust port of the fan, then duck taped it to the pipe.
This configuration pushes air through 3 of the 4 original air intakes. To prevent ash from falling into the intake chamber and to better diffuse the air from the intake into the bottom of the SJ mini wsm, I am using the large tomato can and a charcoal basket.
I did a test run last night with about a 1/2 load of charcoal and 7 lit briquettes trying to hold the temp at 250*. Unfortunately, I unplugged the HeaterMeter before I could grab the graph, but start up time was about 20 minutes and the temp was extremely consistent. For the 5 hours that the smoker held temp, it was between 249 and 255. The charcoal basket completely burned so I know that the diffuser was distributing air correctly.
Fun little mod and total cost was about $25 in hardware.
After walking around for an hour here is what we came up with.
Brinkmann basting mop/bowl
3/4 Copper male pressure cup
3/4 Copper female pressure cup
3/4 Copper pipe 2 feet
7/8 rubber plumbing washers
The mop/bowl combo is just larger than the air intake on the S.J. Gold. It also has an handle which I used to replace the bolt that I was using to control the air vent.
The first thing that I did was drill a hole using a 7/8 hole saw into the side of the Brinkmann bowl. This was for the male end of the connector to pass through into the intake chamber. The female connector completes the connection and on both sides I placed 2 rubber washers to help seal the rough hole.
Next, the Brinkmann bowl was attached to the SJ using the tabs on the stock air intake. I bent the tabs to 90* and used 1/4 bolts to fasten the bowl to the intake. It is not a perfect seal between the intake chamber and the bottom of the SJ, but the intake chamber can easily removed for cleaning/high heat grilling if needed.
I am using the same fan that is part of the hardware build list for the stock HeaterMeter. I hammered down one end of the pipe to fit inside of the exhaust port of the fan, then duck taped it to the pipe.
This configuration pushes air through 3 of the 4 original air intakes. To prevent ash from falling into the intake chamber and to better diffuse the air from the intake into the bottom of the SJ mini wsm, I am using the large tomato can and a charcoal basket.
I did a test run last night with about a 1/2 load of charcoal and 7 lit briquettes trying to hold the temp at 250*. Unfortunately, I unplugged the HeaterMeter before I could grab the graph, but start up time was about 20 minutes and the temp was extremely consistent. For the 5 hours that the smoker held temp, it was between 249 and 255. The charcoal basket completely burned so I know that the diffuser was distributing air correctly.
Fun little mod and total cost was about $25 in hardware.