Took me 3 hours to dial in my offset smoker temp last Saturday

I was trying to get a steady 225 for a pork shoulder I planned on smoking overnight. The dampers were fine, the wood was split right, but that thing kept bouncing between 190 and 260 no matter what I did. Finally figured out it was a small air leak around the firebox door that needed a gasket kit. Has anyone else dealt with random temp swings that took forever to chase down?

2 comments

2 Comments

haydenbutler12d ago

Man, that gasket thing is a game changer honestly. I used to just blame bad wood or wind, figured all offset smokers were just finicky beasts you had to wrestle with. Then I sealed up the firebox door on my Old Country smoker and it holds 225 plus or minus 10 degrees now, no joke. Makes me wonder how many of my past "bad cooks" were actually just leaky smoker problems I could have fixed with some cheap gasket tape.

jennys7212d ago

Wait, you're saying you actually got an Old Country to hold 225 like that? I always figured those things just had a mind of their own and you had to learn to live with the temp swings. Honestly this is making me reconsider all those times I blamed the wood or the wind for ruining my pork shoulder.