Modded my Jumbo Joe into a smoker by using some galvanized flashing for the chamber. This is my first overnight cook (after several burn-ins and one quick cook). I was in for about 15 hours of cooking, and maybe 1 - 2 hours of real work. If you can call cooking work. Any rate on with the cook...
Prepping the Saturday night for the all night cook. Butt, Chuck, and Two Yard Birds
Enough Charcoal for an overnight cook. Started at 1 am. This was enough coal to last the night, but my fire died around 5:30am when I went to check on it. Temp held up even though the fire went out.
Here is my heat difuser two bricks wrapped in aluminum foil… I forgot my drip pan but that actually seemed to help season the smoker that much faster.
Getting smoker up to temperature. Now to get the meat...
Meat has been seasoned for about 5 hours, time for it to take a nice nap, and I tucked it in with a nice hickory blanket.
Every morning that I wake up to a smoker that’s sitting at 225 degrees is good morning. As I said earlier, the fire was going out, but I threw a ligher cube in to restart the fire and and that was all I did to get the temp back to 225. Love this smoker for the money.
Can’t believe there was a time when I thought this meat was ruined. I could have spritzed it and kept going, but I have two chickens that need to be smoked so I foiled these and put them on the lower rack for another 3 hours. No need to take the temp or anything just keep them foiled with some moisture, and when you can stick a fork in them and twist, its done. Took me years to learn and trust that.
Here is whats left after an 8 hour burn. If I had made a proper basket I could probly have kept going without checking, but I added some more lump to the fire. The thing I like about lump is the low ash.
Smoke is starting to come up from the mixed stirred up charcoals. Next pictures show the foiled butt and chuck, and the two chickens on top.
Prepping the Saturday night for the all night cook. Butt, Chuck, and Two Yard Birds
Enough Charcoal for an overnight cook. Started at 1 am. This was enough coal to last the night, but my fire died around 5:30am when I went to check on it. Temp held up even though the fire went out.
Here is my heat difuser two bricks wrapped in aluminum foil… I forgot my drip pan but that actually seemed to help season the smoker that much faster.
Getting smoker up to temperature. Now to get the meat...
Meat has been seasoned for about 5 hours, time for it to take a nice nap, and I tucked it in with a nice hickory blanket.
Every morning that I wake up to a smoker that’s sitting at 225 degrees is good morning. As I said earlier, the fire was going out, but I threw a ligher cube in to restart the fire and and that was all I did to get the temp back to 225. Love this smoker for the money.
Can’t believe there was a time when I thought this meat was ruined. I could have spritzed it and kept going, but I have two chickens that need to be smoked so I foiled these and put them on the lower rack for another 3 hours. No need to take the temp or anything just keep them foiled with some moisture, and when you can stick a fork in them and twist, its done. Took me years to learn and trust that.
Here is whats left after an 8 hour burn. If I had made a proper basket I could probly have kept going without checking, but I added some more lump to the fire. The thing I like about lump is the low ash.
Smoke is starting to come up from the mixed stirred up charcoals. Next pictures show the foiled butt and chuck, and the two chickens on top.
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