Tall Tales & Falsehoods

For Christmas I got a Brinkmann Upright Smoker. It is a good little unit for the price, however after cooking on it a few times it is easy to see you must make a few modifications in order to get better results from smoking your meats. The main drawback I have to this smoker is the holding temperature of the box. When I cook a pork shoulder I want to keep a constant temperature of around 215 degrees. However with my Brinkmann Upright Smoker my temperature normally hovers around 165. I feel as if the small fire basket that came with the grill is to small in order to hold enough fuel to get the grill up to temperature.

I have found a way around not being able to get my my Brinkmann Upright Smoker up to temperature by smoking the meat for the first 4-6 hours and then transferring it over to my gas grill to finish it off. But I want better results from my Brinkmann itself.

When I smoke meats I like to use a combination of Hickory wood chunks and lump charcoal briskets. The provided firebox pan is too small for my taste so I decided to build a new one. As you can tell in my choice of smoker that I am a cheap so I looked around the house to see what I could use to build my new firebox. Lucky for me I had a small sheet of metal lying around the house so I got to work.

I devised a plan to build a box that would slide into the already provided railings of the Brinkmann Smoker. The side walls would be slightly taller than the front walls which would make my firebox a bit deeper than the one provided. In theory this would give me more surface area to place wood chucks and lump charcoal in order to raise the temperature of my smoker.

Not having the proper tools around I had to improvise which included a lot of banging with a sledge hammer. However after much frustration I got the basic shape I needed.

Next I needed to cut and tack weld in the front and back walls. This was pretty straight forward especially when I got out the angle grinders to help it fit into my hole!

The key to getting anything to burn hotter is to make sure you have the right air to fuel ratio. In order to help achieve the proper amount of mixture I drilled 3 holes in each side, 2 in the front and back and five small holes in the bottom. In theory this should help draw a good amount of air across the surface of the wood and charcoal.

Two hundred degrees is darn hot, so a quick weld of a handle is in order!

Not to shabby. Too bad this big boy is made out of thicker steel than the smoker is itself. The firebox actually weights more than the smoker itself.

Once I tried this bad boy out I figured the weight was to much. After a quick bit of thinking I decided that I would lay down 1 inch steel tubing in the bottom of the Brinkmann and sit the new firebox on top.

Next to finish it all off and to protect it from rust I spayed it down with high temperature black paint to match the rest of the grill.

It fits perfectly and besides the actual weight of the firebox, it looks like it belongs in the grill. I have increased my surface area by 60% with this little modification and hopefully it will bring my temperature to where I need it.