Dyna-Glo Vertical Offset Smoker

Who: Total n00B here!! I have nev­er used a smok­er before in my life, only propane grills. I’ve nev­er start­ed a fire before.

Why: I’ve been want­i­ng this par­tic­u­lar smok­er for a looong time and FINALLY, I got it!

What: The Dyna-Glo ver­ti­cal off­set smok­er. It’s cheap! I bought mine under $200 on Ama­zon. Giv­en the extreme afford­abil­i­ty of the unit, it does require a few mod­i­fi­ca­tions before get­ting going. I bought a high heat sil­i­cone for smok­ers to seal up the lit­tle holes and a smok­er seal for the door. It still leaks a bit, but I just keep chas­ing them around.Today was the first day I cooked with it! Before, I sea­soned the thing and WOW I am a super new­bie. The short of it, though, is that I deem it a success!So, here are some pics:

Awe­some gloves
Because I have no oth­er choice but to use it on my deck, I decid­ed to get a PVC pro­tec­tive mat and a heat shield to direct the heat away from the deck.
Lump char­coal — burns longer
Char­coal bri­quettes — burns even­ly
Chim­ney starter sit­ting in a small portable grill
Start­ing to ash over
I just used a reg­u­lar old lighter
The fire box with hot coals and a foil cov­ered pouch of wood chips (when I cooked, I just threw the chips right on top of the coals, no foil)
2.5 hours of smok­ing two chick­en leg quar­ters, brined overnight and dry-rubbed.

Con­clu­sion: I still need more time to mess with it, how­ev­er, I’m real­ly hap­py with how it turned out. My prob­lem right now is how to main­tain the tem­per­a­ture which seems to drop quick­ly. Then again, I was using it in 30–40 degree sun­ny weath­er and giv­en that the cheap met­al is very thin, I’d need to insu­late it if I want­ed to use it reg­u­lar­ly in cold weath­er. When it was sun­ny and warm, the smok­er worked great! It’s a good thing I start­ed with easy things (pota­toes, chick­en leg quar­ters, 2 burg­ers and hot dogs) and did­n’t need to have the unit work­ing for a long time. Even then, I had to do TWO chim­ney’s worth of coal.

Hap­py! 🙂

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aowam

RDH, Dog mom, gamer, eater, creator

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