Aaron Franklin's Barbecue Pit coming soon


 
Item specifics
Condition:
New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging (where packaging is ... Read more
Model:
Prototype No. 4
Cooking grate size: 19" x 36" Modified Item: No
Type: Backyard Offset Cooker Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Weight: 550 pounds Custom Bundle: No
Retail price: $3,499.00 Length 79": 79"
Total BTU: 0 Width: 20.75" At Caster
MPN:
Does Not Apply
Height with stack: 81"
Number of Burners: 0 Height W/O stack: 47"
Brand:
Franklin BBQ PITS
UPC:
Does not apply
 
I got that email also, add shipping and tax and its five grand. That's too rich for me.

Especially since there's a lot of very good backyard offsets for half that price. And I have trouble convincing myself that my briskets are gonna be that much better by spending four thousand dollars.

And FranklinMania will create a long long waiting list. I like Aaron and greatly respect what he's done, but this is a Smoker Too Far for me.
 
And FranklinMania will create a long long waiting list. I like Aaron and greatly respect what he's done, but this is a Smoker Too Far for me.

This has been in my newsfeeds for a few days. While it looks like a well made smoker, the price reflects the name.

Having said that, I've got more than that in my monster in the back yard, but I built that myself, and it's almost exactly what I want.
 
If for some reason the production one is a 24x48 with a insulated firebox, I think the value is there but I don't think it's gonna be the case.
 
I'd like to hear honest reviews from people who've actually smoked meat on one of them, but that would be difficult to come by.

From what I got out of Franklin's Master Class, he's trying to take what he does on the 14 foot long, 1000 gallon propane tank smoker, and scale it down to a backyard smoker. I think that's hard to do. Small backyard smokers are gonna have different characteristics than those large smokers. He talks about the size of the splits needing to be scaled down.

The specs say the backyard smoker will hold three brisket, man, I gotta think the heat differences from one end to the other, are gonna preclude that. He has the same size cooking grate as my Old Country Brazos, though his cook chamber is longer, but still its gonna be tough to manage heat from end to end. With his method of using the firebox door to control air flow, its gonna be difficult to manage temps end to end, without choking off the fire. Those are the same problems I have with my Brazos. I'd like to hear Franklin explain how his smoker solves that riddle.

For me, that means smoking one brisket on the stack end of the grate, so I can have some level of consistent cooking temps and some convection.

From what I've learned, this is not a problem on those 1000 gallon propane tanks.
 
My Brazos , from the far edge of the stack to the end of the firebox is 65" long.

Franklin's pit is 79" long. So his overall length is 14" longer than my Brazos.

His cooking grate is 19X36 same as my Brazos, but he has a shelf on the firebox end, which probably adds 8" to length to the cook chamber, so say cook chamber is 47" long compared to my Brazos at 40" .

He also a manifold on the stack end that adds over all length. Maybe 6 to 8" more , hard to tell.

So that leaves the Franklin pit with a very rough 26" long firebox. My Brazos is 20" . That's not much difference when it comes to locating a fire further away or closer to the cook chamber.

Where's my upgrade ?

I'm sure the manifold and almost four foot long stack would be better than my Brazos. But the Franklin stack appears to be 4" and my Brazos has a 5 " stack.
 
Three brisket are possible but not end to end and you'd have to rotate them. I think on those big pits they just count on a few feet near the firebox being unusable. You could stick something there you want to cook hot and fast. I'd say it's not much upgrade for you but it might have more usuable space than the Brazos. My old Country has a 32 inch cook chamber. I'm still pretty intrigued by the workhorse pits.

https://www.workhorsepits.com/

The shipping cost I'm getting is 400. That still comes in way cheaper than the Franklin pit with a similar design.
 
I need to find a local welder who knows smokers, and get him to put a manifold and stack on my Brazos, like Franklins.

Maybe even cut the baffle out of the cook chamber.
 
The auction ended last night, last time I looked, it was at $8100 .

Though, article says steel tariffs have raised the price of steel, I kinda think the tariffs eliminated the discount the Chinese govt was giving and now steel is selling at its true Fair Market Value. I guess its all about how ya look at it :)
 
Funny reading this thread now that I've bought a Franklin. I have no buyers remorse. I'm very happy with the Franklin. When I would cook on my Brazos, I was always thinking about ways to improve it. I've never given one thought of that to the Franklin. Aaron has worked that out for me. It cooks much better than my Brazos. Offset stick burners are odd creations. To be such a simple device, they're very complicated.

For a lot less money, I could've paid a welder to mod my Brazos. Could've reworked the stack and the cut the baffle out, but I would still have wondered what was going on inside the cook chamber. I did try to go that route, and I contacted a couple of welders and that did not go well. It became apparent immediately that these guys had their own ideas. And one wanted me to haul the smoker to his shop and who knows when I would get it back. Having to deal with some welder I found on Craigslist, wasn't something I wanted to do.

What I should've done years ago, was go to the local Vo-tech and take a welding course. But I only know that after owning a Brazos and a Frankin and experiencing the difference. I would now know what to build.

But none of these smokers are getting cheap. I've got a Masterbuilt Gravity Feed that retails for $500 and I found at WalMart for $250. And its put together very cheap, IDK that its worth what I paid for it. Its almost two years old and I'm having some reliability problems. IDK how long it will last. But it cooks great. I'm sold on gravity feed smokers. I love it, in that regard.

And if you want a quality gravity feed , the price is gonna be $2500 and up plus freight. The Myron MIxon and Stump GF's are through the roof, higher priced than the Franklin.

BTW, Aaron sold around a 1,000 smokers from his waiting list. I saw a new owner on Instagram couple months ago who had bought #950, or thereabouts. I got #157 in March 2021.
 
@Lynn Dollar it's not surprising that a welder would want you to haul your Brazos into their shop. Obviously, if they have a full mobile truck or trailer, that's a bit of a different story. If he (or she, I shouldn't make assumptions,) is going to be cutting, plating & welding, the weld lines need to be squeaky clean, and they'll have all of the tools at their disposal in their shop. Oh, and power.... while you can get good welds with 120v welders, they'll either be relatively thin or multiple passes (smokers should be under this limit, though.) Just makes it a whole lot easier.

Having said all of that...... my g/f put the firm squash on acquiring a used propane tank and going down that fabrication road several years ago. Personally, I'm now quite happy with my fully insulated gravity fed cabinet, it just plain works for me.
 
@Lynn Dollar it's not surprising that a welder would want you to haul your Brazos into their shop. Obviously, if they have a full mobile truck or trailer, that's a bit of a different story. If he (or she, I shouldn't make assumptions,) is going to be cutting, plating & welding, the weld lines need to be squeaky clean, and they'll have all of the tools at their disposal in their shop. Oh, and power.... while you can get good welds with 120v welders, they'll either be relatively thin or multiple passes (smokers should be under this limit, though.) Just makes it a whole lot easier.

Having said all of that...... my g/f put the firm squash on acquiring a used propane tank and going down that fabrication road several years ago. Personally, I'm now quite happy with my fully insulated gravity fed cabinet, it just plain works for me.

There's a multitude of people on the Old Country facebook group who've made the mods themselves in their backyard. My smoker is not going to anybody's shop. Its too personal. And I'm gonna be standing there watching everything he does. I'm not gonna turn a welder loose on my smoker without my supervision. Who knows what I'd get back.
 
It was $3499 + shipping when I bought mine. Once I paid for shipping and bought the cover etc. I was getting up there in cost. $5150 is pretty steep, though. That used to buy a 250 gallon smoker. But you can get instant gratification. That's not possible with most other builders right now. Franklin designed that thing, and then along came other copycats. Some of them got to market first. There's such a big market that other builders who never built a pit that way like Shirley and Lone Star Grillz, now have a Franklin style pit.

I paid extra for delivery to my backyard and uncrating etc. The trucking company was supposed to send two guys. Franklin Pits said to refuse delivery if they only sent one and call them immediately. I got one guy who looked kind of like Serj Tankian from the band System of a Down but 6'4 and built like a bear and with some Eastern European accent. He managed to do it himself and I wasn't about to argue with him.
 

 

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