George:
The CB barrel, mounted, adds 18.25 inches to the height. Mounted on a One touch silver or gold with the CB supplied legs, the height is 47" from the bottom of the legs to the top of the kettle handle. If you are going to use a performer or a kettle with Weber legs, add 18.25" from the top of the Weber kettle rim, plus the height of the lid. I added 2' casters to the CB legs, adds 2.5 inches to the height, actually better, since it is easier to remove the ash pan.

LDW

OK--- I now have my Bandit assembled!!!! My new purchase...Tell me what to use for charcoal and how much and what to expect?????

I'm firing mine up again this weekend to do ribs for my parents and some of their friends (I actually hauled the CB 800 miles in the back of my minivan to upstate NY). I'm using lump charcoal when I can find it or all-natural briquettes (no binders but vegetable or cornstarch) that I've found at Lowes Home Improvement and Trader Joe's. The amount varies depending on the length of the cooking time, obviously. I put a heavy layer in the bottom and light a full chimney. I haven't had to add charcoal for a cook as long as 8 hours thus far...

I finally got around to assembling my Bandit. I have a OTG that I used for the conversion. I didn't like the idea of having to use the three fin ash removal system for controlling air flow, so I added two, four hole Weber circle vents for air control. I mounted them at the same location as the WSM.

I cooked four racks of spares on Saturday. I started with a half ring of unlit Rancher and added 2/3's of a chimney of lit. My temps came up fairly quickly and I closed the vents to 90% closed. They spiked to 250. I closed the vents completely until I got it back down to 225. I opened one vent up to about 10%. I shouldn't have started with so much lit, because I had a heck of a time keeping my temps down. I finally put about a gallon of cold water with the gallon and one half of hot water already in the bowl to help settle the temps down a bit. Even with all of the vents closed, including the top vent, this thing still wanted to run hot (300 degrees). I had to do this after I had the cooker open for 5 minutes when I was saucing the ribs. Next time, I will pull them out and put the lid on and pull it off again when I'm ready to put them back on after saucing. I'm not sure where it was drawing air from because the design seems even tighter than a factory WSM. Maybe it can pull some air through the ash system. It certainly isn't coming through the door. That is a vast improvement over Weber's design.

All in all, I like the size of this thing. Not having to cut the racks in half was great. I'm not a a big fan, however, of all of crap running down the outside of the cooker. I wish there was a way to prevent this or minimize it from happening. I can only imagine what this will look like when I do a big butt smoke. I have 12 to do for my bro's wedding. I might just bust out my two WSM's for that job and save the Bandit for big briskets and ribs.

I have an extra stainless steel door for the Bandit. I paid nothing for it, so if anybody is interested, I will ship it to them for the cost of shipping. BTW, the doors that Chris is producing for the WSM's are fantastic. Very tight and they look nice too.

I think your problem with temps is at least partially due to the addition of extra vents. The One Touch system is NOT airtight, and with the extra vents you installed, it is probably getting more air than it needs. On the upside, if you use that grill as a grill again, it'll probably burn far hotter than a stock unaltered one-touch.

I cooked a couple of slabs of ribs and a butt on the CB this weekend. After a few cooks, I feel confident controlling the temperature with the one-touch system. It's surprising how little I have to crack it open, but once adjusted it stays pretty steady at 225-250. I can let it go for several hours without checking or adjusting.

Anytime I have to open the lid, I shut the top and bottom vents all the way before putting the lid back on. After about five minutes, the temps come back down and I can set the vents back to normal.

quote:

Originally posted by Jake S:
I just noticed a feature of the CB. I was browsing the charcoal grate mods page, and I noticed that a couple of them are supposed to let you shake the charcoal grate/chamber to let you separate the ash.

The charcoal ring on my bandit has tabs stamped and formed into the bottom. You put the charcoal grate inside the ring, it sits on the tabs, then you just pick up the whole ring and shake out the ash.

I'd definitely used that feature, I just never realized it was something the WSM didn't have. If I had more energy right now, I'd go down and take a picture. As it is, here's a cropped and enlarged shot from when I first took it out of the box. You'll just have to imagine how it fits together.

He is a rocket scientist... what did you expect?

The last time that I used my Bandit, I went with some lump charcoal that had lots of small pieces in the bag. No problem with the majority of them falling through the charcoal grate, I just added a second, older grate and turned it 90 degrees to the first grate and vola!!! I cut the grate openings in half and didn't lose as much lump in the bottom of the Weber as before!!! Now I know that this is not a miracle, and I'm sure someone else has tried it on other Webers, but the nifty tabs on the charcoal ring make the addition of the second grate pretty easy and if you have to shake the charcoal, the grates stay put!!

this may sound like a dumb question, but when you have assembled whe whole thing, how many cooking racks do you have?

There are two cooking grates. The overall design is very similar to the WSM (Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker), which is pictured below. From top to bottom:
Lid
cooking grate
cooking grate
water pan
charcoal ring
charcoal grate
charcoal bowl

quote:

Originally posted by Robert McGinley:
I had, in the past, cut up a 55gal drum to add a center section to my performer but that didn't work out very well

I'm also thinkin' of doing this, Could you, or anyone else that have done this give us some details on the fit at the bottom and top, where to cut barrel to help make it fit, etc.?

quote:

Originally posted by Chris Finney:
You guys should check out this one also.
Smoke-EZ

Great price...........NOT! Can't find it anywhere on their site. Not even on the order form!

Just received my Cajun Bandit w/stainless steel door.
At first glance I wasn't impressed with all the pop rivets or the runs in the paint job near the door, but it is solid and tight. The legs are very sturdy and easy to assemble.
I'm using an OTS with 2 bowl handles, which will make moving and dumping ash easier, and mounted a new WSM thermometer and bezel in the lid. Wired the charcoal grate to the ring.
My Weber rotisserie ring is out of round and I did a little tweaking to it and it fits snug with less gaps than on the kettle.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll do a test cook with it!

First rotisserie cook with the Cajun Bandit went great! Here is a link with the rundown.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/fo...=1003005&postcount=1

This is a neat add-on for weber kettles... I just got my weber off craigs list for $20... Adding one of these would definitely help me with putting together a budget friendly smoker.

Jester