tony b Posted May 2, 2015 Report Share Posted May 2, 2015 No worries, mate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpwebb Posted May 4, 2015 Report Share Posted May 4, 2015 Although I haven't cut through them I'm pretty sure the legs are solid. I actually thought about cutting them off. I don't use the flour/water paste when using the smoke pot as the lid sits on pretty tightly, I haven't had any issues without sealing the two together and smoke doesn't appear to come out of the seam. The Lodge outlet store is in South Pittsburgh, TN I think I have almost every piece they make, and that is what we cook with mostly in our house. I even have one of their small grills, but have never used it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted May 5, 2015 Report Share Posted May 5, 2015 Wow. What fun to find this thread. I dug up this photo from 2005 (before my KK) to illustrate the idea Dennis had of directing smoke pot gases underneath the charcoal. If the fire gets a bit hot, these gases will take off on their own. In fact, I stumbled onto the smoke pot idea rather by accident. I was experimenting in 2005 with making charcoal: A basic technique is to heat a sealed wood chamber over a fire, with only a few holes at the bottom facing the fire. There's a threshold where the gases from the chamber take over, and one no longer needs the fire. Because oxygen doesn't enter the chamber, there's some material left when the process finishes, which one harvests as charcoal. After making a few batches of charcoal inside my ceramic cooker, it dawned on me that I could scale this down as a smoke source for cooking. The idea was like fractional distillation; I didn't want any of the nasties from actual combustion of the wood. (This is rather like "vaping".) After reading about Danny Meyer sinking a small fortune into custom barbecue equipment in a New York City restaurant, I wondered why one couldn't build a chamber to produce wood "gas" to pipe into a separate gas oven. Why not cook with all the usual controls of a fancy gas oven, and with the flavor of wood? I can see some engineering challenges here, but this could work. I do seal my lid each time, with a flour water paste squeezed out of a plastic bag with the corner nicked. Some lids will seal on their own better than others, but a paste seal will always have some effect, preventing any convection through the pot. I like how this tames the smoke, it becomes one more seasoning in balance. I've long realized that the flour paste step interferes with adoption, and it may not be critical, but it's far from the hardest thing I do in the kitchen. One gets used to anything, and it helps in the kitchen to fear nothing. Yes, I use a new drill bit and a bit of oil to drill three 1/8" holes in the cast iron. A cheap bit will do; it is sacrificial. In case anyone is motivated to make further experiments, here are some successes and failures from the past (various people): One can buy stainless steel camping cook pots where the lid clamps on tight. These pots haven't worked as well for me. One can also special order (for a small fortune) stainless steel pipes with threaded caps (think pipe bomb) for a better seal without flour paste. I haven't; the flour paste really doesn't bother me. Why stainless steel in each case? Various metals off-gas toxins when heated; one should be truly paranoid about using compound metals one doesn't understand around food. Have you ever seen galvanized metal for a cooking vessel? There's a reason you don't want to be the pioneer here, either learn the reason or be cautious. Not every smoking wood comes from a tree that produces food, but that's a safe start if one doesn't know. One doesn't need to stick to cast iron or stainless steel, but that's also a safe start if one doesn't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted May 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2015 Syzygies - good to see you here! And thanks so much for doing the pioneering work on this smoke pot. I habe used your idea to great success. My friends and I thank you fron the bottom of our DO smoke pots! I have this little 2 quart DO from Lodge that seals quite tight, so I've stopped using the flour paste after a single try. You are quite right in sticking to CI and Stainless Steel. Galvanized metal will off-gas zinc at the temps in the charcoal basket. Nobody want anything to do with zinc poisoning! Most alloys of just plain steel will oxidize (rust) quickly at high temps. I have seriously thought about building one of the stainless steel pipe smokers. I have several 5 gallon buckets of various pellets that were given to me by the widow of a dear friend. I think the stainless steel tube would work quite well for pellets. Any tips you might have that you'd like to share? Any pointers as to we're I could source one? I had a Buddy who tried the stainless cooking pots with the lids that clamped on. It was a real waste of money in his opinion. I think it's part of a landfill at this point. Ok, so I hear a rumor that it's your hand that did all the math notation in "A Beautiful Mind.". My compliments! I'm originally a Chemical Engineer with minors in my PhD of Math (Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Theory), Math Econ, Math Stat, and Econometrics. I'm kinda of a Quant Jock. I had studied a lot of game theory in grad school, so I related to quite well to that movie. I believe the Noble for Game Theory was awarded to Nash the year after I finished. What is your area of research? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted May 5, 2015 Report Share Posted May 5, 2015 OK, I'm impressed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted May 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2015 OK, I'm impressed! I hope you're not talking about me! I was just smart enough to get into college but not smart enough to stay out! LOL! tony - here's the deal. Hang around long enough with a lot of really, really smart folks and something is bound to rub off! That's my story and I'm sticking to it because it's true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckreef Posted May 5, 2015 Report Share Posted May 5, 2015 Great background story on the smoking pot Syzygies. TY for coming aboard and posting that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jclarkhpa Posted May 6, 2015 Report Share Posted May 6, 2015 I've really enjoyed reading this post. I've got a small CI Lodge cook pot that I made about a year ago,based on one of the posts here and a smoke tube I purchased about 6 months ago. The problem I've run into with both is the KK doesn't have enough oxygen to keep them going. For my long cooks I typically put in my BBQ guru, and I guess the KK is so efficient that when I'm up,to,temp it will put in a puff of air every once in a while, but both the smoke tube and CI pot have always gone out. I've stopped using the pot after opening it twice and having the wood still in perfect condition. My first worry was that the holes weren't big enough but they were exactly what the original directions said from the first post a year or so ago. When I got the smoke tube and realized that it went out after 3-4 minutes in the KK, I realized it couldn't be the holes in the CI pot since the tube is full of holes. Since my temp stays rock solid for hours when I have the guru, I'm worried about weaning off and getting harder to control temps if I have a steady flow of oxygen. I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone else talk about this lack of oxygen problem with their KK's for the low and slows. Am I just doing something wrong? I'd love to get more of a smoke profile if I can figure this out. Any help would be appreciated.<br /> Aloha<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted May 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2015 jclarkhpa - I have also had real problems using the Amazing Tube Smoker, not only in the KK, but in every kamado. The owners of the Tube Smoker do not recommend using their product in kamados. As you surmise, the Tube Smoker doesn't get enough oxygen to sustain it. As the Cast Iron Dutch Oven smoke pot, I've never had one bit of trouble with it. I generally only use it for low-n-slow cooks, i.e. cooks below 300°F or so. I simply light my fire in a single spot, let the fire establish itself, set my vents, and let the KK heat soak. while the KK is heat soaking, I fill the smoke pot with chunks of the wood I'll use to lay on the smoke component of my coo, i.e. oak or maple or hickory, etc. Then when I get ready to put my cook on the grate, I nestle the filled Dutch Oven down in among the lit charcoal, put in my heat deflectors, put on the grate and then the cook, then the thermometer probes and I button up my KK for the duration of the cook. I've never had a problem getting smoke on my cooks. I always make certain that I nestle the Dutch Oven down in the lit charcoal about an inch or so. The Dutch Oven is an entirely passive system. It relies completely on the lit charcoal in the firebox of the KK for heat to produce the smoke. I'm not certain I understand you when you say that the "... cast iron pot has always gone out ..." as in this smoke pot system there is nothing to go out in the cast iron pot. You don't light the wood on fire in the smoke pot as you do pellets in the Tube Smoker. Hope this helps! If you have any more questions, just ask and we'll get you up and running in no time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted May 6, 2015 Report Share Posted May 6, 2015 I second CC's note - I've never had a problem with my CI smoke pot "going out." Occasionally, I'll open it to find that it hasn't completely turned to charcoal, but that's usually due to the cooking time being shorter, say for ribs or a small roast. Any long lo & slo cook will almost always consume all the smoking wood in the DO. And, I always use my Guru if the cook is longer than a couple of hours. So, I don't think that's the problem either. Like CC said, make sure that you set the DO directly on top of your lit coals. Your problem might be that if you set the DO somewhere else, the coals never get going under your pot, so it never gets hot enough to produce any smoke?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jclarkhpa Posted May 9, 2015 Report Share Posted May 9, 2015 You are right, sorry for the confusion. It was late at night and I was so busy huntin and peckin the letters on my iPad I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. I shouldn't have said it went out when talking about the CI smoke pot (I probably still had the smoke tube in mind). It would have been more accurate to say that it never started smoking in the first place. Based on the comments, I think it's not sitting close enough to the lit coals. I use coco char for the low and slow cooks and stack them vertically in the basket. Perhaps I need to really push the pot down into the coals, almost screwing it in, since I think I've just been resting it on the hottest part I could find. I'll try again but if anyone has more specific suggestions about the placement and how you configure your charcoal so the pot does get the flame/heat, I'd appreciate it.<br /> Aloha.<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZooBeeQ Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 Had a time finding this post. Do we do stickies ? this one should def get stuck ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
