John Battles
New member
Hi all. When I received confirmation that my application for tickets to the first Brickyard 400 were on the way, I bought a Weber Smokey Joe with the high mount intake vents on the bowl. Just to keep ashes from messing with the vehicle. Like many folks have discovered and complained about with this design is when closing the lid would reduce the heat of the fire. I would always crack the lid an eighth to a quarter inch gap between the lid and bowel into the wind. Used it that way for many years. Once I found this site maybe ten years ago, I dug into the Portable grill sub forum for some ideas. Literally one of the earliest posts in that sub forum described using a piece of aluminum foil to direct air flow from one upper vent angled toward the coals on the other side of the bowl. The other vent was closed and the exhaust vent on the lid was over the intake vent. I will soon post about a solution I created after thinking about that post. I need to make sure I size the pictures correctly before I do. Once I made these air diverters, I have successfully smoked pork loin, ribs, thick pork chops, and sausages with the lid completely closed. I drop the temp probes through one of the intake vents. Hopefully Chris can make it a sticky because they are easy to make with no expenditure required if you buy 12 oz. soda cans. Maybe John Burns can talk to the production staff about a new stamping to include with new grills. Thanks for reading.
