Tall Tales & Falsehoods

This Friday (Oct. 28, 2011) from 9-12 there will be a free social media workshop. The idea is to introduce those of you who are not familiar with social media strategies to some of the best practices associated with businesses. Learn how to interact with your customers through an online world. Laptops are encouraged as this is a hands on demo of practices. Sponsored by TheDigitel Myrtle Beach along with HGTC’s Digital Arts department, the intro to social media will be given by Dorien Morin-van Dam from More in Media. A talk on Creative Commons and Flicker will be had, concentrating on tapping into social media as a news source. It’s free and open to the public.

Read TheDigitel’s post here.  

This year my family and I are planning on planting our own garden. We are very fortunate to have access to some land and equipment that most do not. For the past few weeks I have been planning the garden out with my Father. This is what we have decided.

The garden will be approximately 18 rows with a length of 84 feet per row. Each row will be spaced out four feet (the width of our plow) for a total of 72 feet. The total area of the garden should be 6,336 square feet. This is little over 1/8 of an acre. While we have plenty of land that we could plant more I want to make sure I can personally attend to this amount of space in my limited amount of time. An additional 1/2 of an acre will be plowed for planting space if needed. We will be setting aside 1/4 of an acre for fruit trees and bushes that take two years to germinate.

Below you will find a list of the vegetables that we plan on planting and the anticipated planting date harvesting date of each:

Peppers (Bell): P-March 5 / H-May 21
Onions (Yellow): P-March 5 / H-June 11
Broccoli: P-March 5 / H -May 21
Beans (Snap): P-March 12 / H-May 7
Cantaloupe: P-March 12 / H-June 4
Sweet Corn: P-March 12 / H-June 11
Cucumbers: P-March 19 / H-June 18
Squash (Summer): P-March 19 / H-March 11
Tomato: P-March 19 / H-June 4
Watermelon: P-March 19 / H-June 25
Okra: P-April 1 / H-July 2
Lima Beans: P-April 1 / H-
Potatoes (Sweet): P-April 16 / H-July 30
Peanuts: P-April 16 / H-Aug. 13

*For more information on harvesting and planting dates check out Clemson Corporative Extension, specifically this article.

While I understand that this will be quite an undertaking I am hopeful that my crop will yield a bountiful harvest. I am planning on using all heirloom seeds from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. This is very important to me. And while everybody tosses around the buzz word “Organic” I am not so wrapped up in that. I will use all natural products, hard work and sweat to make my garden work, but don’t want to bank on such a buzz word. By no means does this encompass the reason why I am planting my own garden. My crops are meant for a means of being more self sufficient rather than necessarily eating health. I am hoping that eating healthy will be a by-product of working hard.

I hope to blog more about the progress of my garden as time goes on. Please write in and drop some comments on how you think I am doing and what I may need to look out for.

Brinkmann Upright Smoker

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.

Original Fire Basket

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.

Measurments

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.

Making the lip

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.

Basic Shape

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!

Tack Weld

Front and Back Welded In

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.

Air Holes

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

A Hot Handle!

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.

Fire Box

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.

1 Inch Tubing

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.

High Temp Paint

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.

Brinkmann Firebox Mod