I'm here because I've been doing a decent amount of smoking on my 18" kettle lately and really liking what I can do with it. In fact I just ordered a 22" otg to play with hoping the larger area and flip grates would make life a little easier. I'd also really love a wsm right now but thats not in the cards for a while after getting the otg.

edit: Also, I did find someone selling food grade 55 gallon drums with lids about an hour away from me for $35 each and did consider that but I don't have a truck and I'm not sure they'll squeeze into the backseat of a large sedan

Last night though I was in walmart getting a bag of coal and saw the brinkmann smoker marked down to $25 from $37. I threw it in my cart and brought it home. So whats the story on these? I'm not super happy with smoking on the kettle because even with the minion method it seems like its just a matter of time until my fire is too hot. No matter how few coals I start with, no matter how spread out or close together I put them in, my fire will be heading past 300 in a hour or two.

I know the brinkmann has a relatively poor reputation but I figure a lot of you have used it. Will it hold me over for a year or so until I buy the wsm? What are the issues with it? If it rusts out in a year thats fine. Can it hold a relatively stable temperature with minion? I'm open to modding it too if that will help. I'd just like something a little larger than a kettle to put butts and the like on for the next year or so.

So what do you say, can it work alright or should I just take it back to walmart and keep with the kettle?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: John09,

I'll speak for myself........I started on and ECB, at first it was a pain in the A$$ to cook on, then I drilled a couple holes in the charcoal pan to get rid of ash and provide airflow and voila, it worked much much better! As good as a WSM?? Noot close, but it will get the job done and make good BBQ.

a charcoal basket made by weber or stacking some bricks to make a pocket for coals works well in kettles.

the ECB are a pain to use. but they are better than offset rigs.

quote:

Originally posted by John09:
I'm not super happy with smoking on the kettle because even with the minion method it seems like its just a matter of time until my fire is too hot. No matter how few coals I start with, no matter how spread out or close together I put them in, my fire will be heading past 300 in a hour or two.

John, I don't have a 18" kettle, but with my 22.5" OTG, I can do a very good job of controlling temperatures. I usually start with 12 to 14 lit coals when I wish to maintain a grate temperature of 220-250 degrees F. This is assuming reasonably comfortable ambient air temperatures. The bottom vents are usually nearly closed to completely closed. The top vent is full open.

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they can be made to work as i did to mine. but i find that i do better in my kettle.

They can be made to work beter than they are stock. I have a brinkman that I was going to use until i came across a wsm. From what I found you either need to modify the charcoal pan or the easy way is to by a smokey joe and use that. You need to switch the legs to the outside and then set the smoker over the grill. Here is a link to a mod that you can do as well
http://brinkmansmokermods.com/default.aspx
http://home.comcast.net/~day_trippr/smoker_mods.htm

There are other sites out there as well you just need to search for them.

i am planning on modifing mine in order to do jerky on. I want otto add a bunch of grates to it. I will post pic when I do. Hope this helps.

I picked up a Brinkmann locally from someone here on the board.

Tried it without the modifications: not very good results.

Modified it (but didn't add the additional air vents): decent results but had to babysit it a lot and the temperature was still not consistent.

Bought a WSM: very happy now. Only used it about 6 times but it's so nice to just fire it up and monitor it for the first hour or so to get it to operating temp. It maintains the temperature so much better than ECB.

Maybe I didn't use the ECB enough to get past the learning curve. I think it's worth it to keep and try it out.

But.....I love my WSM ,

I had an ECB for several years. Do the leg and vent mods and it will work OK. On the other hand the WSM right out of the box works fantasticly. I would never, ever go back and I wish I had upgraded much sooner. The ECB will get you hooked on BBQ, but the frustration level is quite high as it does not hold temps well without a lot of babysitting. The WSM will hold temps for 12 hours+ without adjustment.

a great mod is to use a smokey joe as the charcoal burner.

My very first smoker was a Brinkman I paid $5 for. It was mature and didn't last very long - died of rust. But it taught me that I loved Q'ing, so I'll always have a soft spot for them.

John09 there are a couple of ways to set up your Kettle to make them extremely controllable. I can get 12 hrs out of 4 lbs of coal at 230 deg with 1 set up I use it for briskets and pork butts.pretty much set and forget. here is a link to that post.http://tvwbb.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9040039023/m/214107513
There is another set up that i use for smokes less than 6 hrs set and forget 230 deg -250 deg.Here is a pic of that setup
the HDAF over the coal grate ducts the air so it has to be drawn up through the fire.Open the intake and place 6 lit briquettes on top of the unlit coals in your fire bed when the tenp gets to 200 deg on the cooking grate close the intake own to 1/8-1/4 open and it will settle in at 230- 240.
I know that your questions where about the ECB.The ECB will make some ggood "Q" but it can be very cantankerous but there are some mods that will get it humming along. Here is a link with lots of pictures on how to "GIT 'ER DONE".http://www.randyq.addr.com/index.html
Good luck