[AZSmoke]

Hello all,

As my introduction a while back mentioned, I'm new to smoking in general, not sure if I'm posting this in the right place or not, but here's my scenario. I  recently picked up a cabela's gas smoker cheap.  After setting it up and going through the initial seasoning session, I decided to try the first smoke.

Here's my problem, I could not get the temperature lower then 290-310 range.  I was using a maverick redicheck smoking thermometer with a food probe and a smoke chamber probe, so I'm pretty sure that temp reading was accurate.  This smoker only has one vent, I had it open all the way, and the gas turned as low as possible.  The water pan was filled to about 1 inch below the top, and I had 2-3 pieces of hickory in the chip box below the water.

Are there any tricks or modifications that can be safely done to help get the temperatures down?  Being new to smoking I thought using a gas setup would be easier to learn on vs starting with Charcoal, maybe I should have gone the other way?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Karl

[jmcrig]

Not an expert with this situation, and maybe someone that knows more will jump in. But, is there anyway to reduce the amount of air to the flame. Some units have a small slide afair to limit the fuel to air mixture. Just guessin' here.

[Crash]

I also dont know much about gas smokers, but maybe fill the water pan up with ice cold water....just a thought.

[AzJohnnyC]

Maybe Kevin will pop on and chime in. He has a smoke vault gasser. All I use my gas grill for anymore is storage for my bbq stuff.

[Jaybird]

Yeah, should of went charcoal...WSM.

[sabo]

What type and size gasser is it?

[SmoknAZ]

Not an expert with this situation, and maybe someone that knows more will jump in. But, is there anyway to reduce the amount of air to the flame. Some units have a small slide afair to limit the fuel to air mixture. Just guessin' here.

Not an expert either but you might get some bad flavor from running too rich like a propane odor / flavor? Not certain what running too lean would do??

[AZSmoke]

JMCRIG, I looked for something like that but didn't see one, it's a pretty straight forward burner setup, I'm wondering if a needle valve would help, but I'm worried about getting too low of a flame for the burner setup it has, would hate to have the flame get blown out, then open the door and then have the gas ingnite.

Sabo, it's a Cabela's store brand square gasser, stands about 46 inches tall, and is 16x16 wide/deep.  Went out to measure it tonight, and noticed the water pan was all but dry, had about 1/4 inch water in it.  I'm wondering if that had anything to do with it?  I'll have to play with it some more and then start looking for a charcoal smoker. 

Thanks all for chiming in, I'll keep checking back to see if anyone has any other ideas.

Thanks again,
Karl

[WhiskeyRiverAZ]

Well I use "old gassy" often and if your cooking a bunch of food, especially at elevation it works well. I started with charcoal went to gas, met all these guys at azbbq and it's back to charcoal! It is all that you can use to compete, no gas.

Sometimes when my gas is low it will "flame" up like that and will not allow me to turn it down. I would check you gas level as well as the operation of the knob. Make sure it is turning all the way down. I fill my water pan to the top and with the knob turned to the lowest setting my runs right at about 210 at its lowest setting. Sometimes I have to turn the knob up and down several times to get the flame to settle down to the lowest setting.

Hope this helps and welcome to the sight. I have had a vertical Brinkman, the Smoke Vault by Camp Chef (gas), a Pro Q and just picked up a Weber Smokey Mountain. It seems to be my favorite so far. Been cooking on it almost everyday to practice and I am really impressed.

Kevin

[force]

does it have a regulator?

[n2dabluebbq]

pass the gas. and remember you are always good with wood. hahaha
seriously though, i hope you get the help you need. no fun buying something and not being able to use it.
welcome to the forum.

[AZSmoke]

Whiskey, thanks for the info, I'll have to mess with the knob, I started with a full tank, so I don't think that was the issue.  The flame didn't look that good, was more orange/yellow then blue with slight yellow.   I'm not going to give up on it just yet, I had hopes of smoking sausage in it.  I'm looking into the WSM, seems to have a lot of positive feedback on it.

Force, by regulator are you referring to the knob control?  if so yes it has one with a high/med/low labeling, but on low the flame is still pretty big, not sure if the venturi is working correctly or not, I'm going to take a closer look at this weekend.

Thanks again for the info folks, appreciate it.

[jmcrig]

If you can't get the gas figured out, get a $10.00 hot plate. You can put it in the bottom of the smoker with old small skillet for the wood and smoke away. For sausage, you only need to get the smoker to about 170 degrees.

[AZSmoke]

jmcrig, thanks for the tip on the hot plate for the sausage.

[jmcrig]

For smoked sausage you use insta cure #1 and smoke it slowly bringing the temp of the sausage up to 160 degrees. A hot plate works well. I would suggest using sawdust for your smoke. It can be found online at places like;http://www.butcher-packer.com/. Good luck with your sausage, if you have any questions, please ask.