Now that would make Tim Allen go nuts!!!!!!!!!! Some ingenuity,great job.

Did another cook yesterday, and had some problems keeping the smoker up to temp. It was a cold(by Florida standard), rainy, windy day yesterday, and I went through quite a bit of wood, put out alot more smoke than I thought I should have, and had trouble keeping it up to the 225 mark. So I'm going to make a few small mods to the smoker to try and help it out. I did some testing on it while cooking, and found if I opened the door on the firebox, smoke and flames would come out, if I opened the lid most of the smoek and flames would go back up through the smoker, and the smoke would clear up and it would burn nice again. Close the firebox door and it would keep burning, but if I closed the lid, the fire would go out and the smoek would come back after about 30 seconds. So I'm thinking my 3.3" ID chimney pipe just isn't large enough to flow the heat out of the smoker, and am on the lookout for a piece of 1 inch bigger pipe to make my chimney out of. I can hold a good fire in the box with the lid open, but closed it won't hold heat. Also I'm going to add in an exhaust pipe to the roof of my overhang for the smoek to go out instead of my current 90.

Even with the troubles I ran into yesterday, I still managed to turn out some decent food. Cooked a whoel chicken, a pork loin, a slab of baby backs for prego, and a brisket.

baby backs as they went on. http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps71faef8a.jpg

The brisket before cooking, during, and done.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps7f2dd1e5.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps20e50686.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps11d9b027.jpg

Try insulating your chimney.... Hot gasses draft much better.... An insulated clue pipe would slide right over the existing pipe or could replace it if you like

I got my 3.3" ID chiney pipe swapped out for a 4.3" ID pipe. I also added on an adjusteable damper to it. Seems to be doing a bit better now, and not choking back so easily. Another thing I found is my supposed top of the line thermometer is WAY off in temp. My 1st burn in after swapping the chimney pipe I got it up to 400 on the gauge, but I put my digital temp probe in it and found it was almost 500 inside at the thermometer. The thermometer stalls out in the 200-225 range and goes from reading higher than actual to lower than actual right in the sweet spot for smoking temps. When it's 75 degrees, it shows 100, but when it shows 300 it was actually 375. So I have to get another thermometer for it. After moving it back to my porch, I added in a roof top vent pipe setup so the chimney outlet now goes straight up instead of through a 90 and out into the wind. It's a VERY windy day today, and all the exhaust seems to be going straight up and out. Will find out here in a little while how it all does together as I'm doing my 1st cured meats. Got some whole pork loins, put in a brown sugar honey cure for 5 days at 40 degrees, and got em in the smoker now hoping to make some canadian bacon.

Heres the smoker on the porch, and you can see I have the 4.5" OD chimney pipe going tinto a 6" furnace pipe, and finally up into a 8" outlet with rain cap.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps7417f800.jpg

Also built me a wood rack so I can dry my smoking wood somewhere than my back porch taking up space.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps5b9560cc.jpg

And finally, anybody with a nice smoker needs a log splitter to split up your smokin wood so you can get em how you want em.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps3040e66e.jpg

Heres todays cook. I cured it for 5 days at 40 degrees in a brown sugar honey cure, and it came out pretty good.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps91a2d03a.jpg

Lookin' good there Ferm!