I built an SJP Gas Smoker


 
J

Jeff J

TVWBB Member
I posted this on another site, but thought I would share it here as well. A few years ago I bought 2 Smokey Joe Platinum's from Ace Hardware during a Christmas sale for $20 each after rebate. I was never really happy with the way they cooked, as the temps wouldn't get much above 400 for grilling due to the faulty design of the vent holes. I couldn't find a used WSM, so I decided to get a ProQ stacker and turn it into a smoker. I won't bore you with all the details, but it never really worked to get decent stable temps as a smoker either. So it sat in the garage for the past 2 years. I recently did score a WSM and had no need for a wood smoker, and was at the point of pitching the SJP in the trash until I saw a gas conversion a guy did at TVWBB, and was inspired. I had an old Go Anwhere gasser, so I started tinkering again, and here is the result.

I drilled a 7/8 inch hole between the air vents on the right side for the GA burner tube.

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I secured the burner tube on the opposite side with 2 angle brackets bolted together and bent down slightly. The vent cover was permanently attached with a bolt from the outside, which also holds the gas burner bracket in place

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I had previously installed SS bolts in the bowl to accommodate a standard 18.5 cook grate, but in this case installed a spare 22.5 charcoal grate I had over the burner tube. On top of the grate, there is a small wood chip smoker box installed under the deflector plate from the GA gasser

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The stacker middle section has brackets from an old ECB installed for water pan and mid level grate support. Then there are 3 one inch SS bolts at the top for an upper grate.

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The finished product.

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I did a dry run yesterday, and with the smoker chip box full and some water, I was able to get a good stable 240 (setting the dial 1/2 way between low and medium) and got great smoke for about an hour from the chips.

I am not a huge fan of gas smokers, but I am very pleased with the results and it gave me a project to work on built out of stuff just laying around the garage. Once I get a cook done on it, I will report back with the results.

Thanks for your interest!
 
George Curtis said:
very interesting. i'm wondering if maybe using lava rocks might work better.
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Dwain Pannell said:
Can you get to lower cold smoke temps?
Click to expand...

I thought so too, to the point that I actually bought a bag. When I ran completely dry, the lowest temp I could get with the regulator set to "Low" was 250 and the flame would occasionally go out due to wind, etc. With the water pan filled, I could run the regulator 1/2 way between Low and Med, and hold around 240 with no flame extinguishing issues. So won't be able to cold smoke, and looks like water needs to be involved to insure heat is consistent.

Thanks to all for the kind words. I may do a will report back as soon as I get a chance to use it. It may be a few weeks, because I just got my first WSM, and am dying to do ribs on it tomorrow.
 
Okay, so no pics but the first cook was not a good one. Did some spare ribs using the 3-2-1. The flame went out just short of 2 hours, but I was minding it carefully so caught it right away. Could have been a disaster if I wasn't keeping a close eye on it. At 3 hours I went to take the ribs off to foil, and they had virtually no bark and looked mushy. I fired up my kettle with the Smokenator, and was able to recover to the point that they tasted okay, but I was unimpressed with the presentation. Next time, I will just fire up the WSM and be done with it. I don't know what the future holds for the SJP, but I doubt it will be a go to device in my regiment.
 
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