What NOT to do with your new Primo Smoker! (It's fixed)

Took a while to get the parts together, but I finally got my smoker repaired.  Here it is, fully restored! :)

After giving the adhesive/sealant a couple of days to cure, I fired up the grill and let it burn at 400 degrees for a couple of hours.  (Yes, I had the BBQ Guru in there monitoring the temp.  Not going to make that mistake again.)

I did have a couple of spots where I applied too much and the adhesive bled out (it doesn't seem to be a problem though).

Here's the sealant I used to glue the felt back on.  I called the manufactured MEECO just to make sure it would work.  These guys were great!  At first, they weren't sure what I was talking about (guessing they never had someone ask if their fireplace sealant could be used on a slow cooker :).  Eventually, the lady I was talking to found someone who could confirm this would work.  What was even better, about 15 minutes later, she called back and told me they had found videos on YouTube demonstrating what I was talking about!  (Apparently I peaked their curiosity!)

I only used about a quarter the tube.  So, if you can find a smaller one get that instead.

On final inspection, it looks like I didn't do any permanent damage to my Primo. *whew* :)

I did notice one issue.  There is a slight gap in the front of the grill.  I don't know if my screw-up caused it, or if it was there before hand.  At some point I'll figure out if I can fix it.  For now, it doesn't seem to be affecting the cooking process, so I'm leaving it alone. :)

 

 

What NOT to do with your new Primo Smoker!

So it's been a couple of months since I got my fancy new Primo XL smoker, and I have to admit it's AMAZING! I love the consistency it's brought to my cooking. Of course, being the idiot I am, I managed to break it this weekend. (More accurately, I managed to seal it shut!)

I had just finished a cooking marathon the day before (24 hours, 3 different kinds of meat) and the smoker had cooled down. There were bits of meat still clinging to the grill so I decided to fire it up with the coals that were remaining to burn them off. To accomplish this (and here's what I did wrong) I opened BOTH the bottom vent AND the chimney all the way. I then left the grill unattended for 2 hours! At this point I didn't think I had done any thing wrong, and when I came back out to check on it the thermometer only read about 400 degrees F. No big deal, right? Wrong. When I tried to open the lid nothing happened. I tried again (using more force) and nearly picked the 200 pound smoker off it's base! It was sealed shut!

After the initial panic wore off (I thought I had just ruined the brand new smoker I hadn't even had for 3 months yet!) I closed all the vents and decided to let it cool down before doing anything else. I called Jeff (from bbqproshop.com, @bbqpro on twitter) and told him of my idiocy... what I did. He then told me why I shouldn't have opened BOTH vents. The one time he had done that, he hadn't left it unattended and his reached 800 degrees before he noticed how hot it had gotten. I have no idea how high the temperature went in mine. The next day he sent me a link describing almost exactly what I was experiencing: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/ceramicfaq.htm#meltedgasket

The good news is I can fix it! In fact, I've already gotten the lid open! However, when I close it, there's a crackling sound now. Obviously the gasket actually did melt. Now all I need to do is fully remove the gasket from the grill, purchase a replacement, and apply the new gasket... Oh, and never do this stupid thing again.

Hopefully this serves as a tale of warning to new ceramic smoker/grill owners of what not to do. And for those that find this after fusing their smoker shut, it can be fixed and you're not alone... Though there are very few of us. :P

Here are some pictures I took while getting the lid open.

The tool I used was this "Hook Knife" I bought at Menards to scrape out the burned felt.  I also used a very thin putty-knife-like tool I found around the house (you can actually see it at the bottom of the second picture) that I used to GENTLY slide between the ceramic after I got the bulk of the felt removed and break the seal.

As you can see, I had to remove the handle to get at the felt.

And here are a few pictures of the burnt felt.  It's hard to see in the pictures, but it's not soft and spongy anymore.  It's actually brittle and crackles. (Duh, it's burnt!)

 

 

BBQ Upgrade - (Complete)

Yesterday, my whole family was over for our annual Joe/Pat Dinner (St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day celebrated together). Fortunately I was able to complete the assembly of the table so the whole crew was able to help lift the Primo in.

It did take all 6 of us is some capacity, including my father who was handling the video camera. Speaking of, I will be posting video of this ordeal at some point but I need to edit it down a little first. We actually took over 11 minutes of footage, though it probably took about half an hour for the whole process. (Half of which was trying to figure out how we were going to coordinate it.)

Since it'll be a while before the video's ready, here's a picture of the Primo in it's new home!

 

 

BBQ Upgrade - (Assembly Complete)

Finished the assembly last night! I must admit, it looks much better with the varnish that it did without.

On closer inspection, I did notice several spots where the varnish had dripped or some run lines. However, given this was my first (without supervision) use of varnish, I'm thrilled with the results.

As I was applying the varnish, I realize I kept thinking it was like paint. I was trying to apply a thick coat. Bad idea! Although the can said to use a paint brush, next time I think I'm just going to use rags to apply the varnish (and maybe small brushes for those tight spaces/corners). I think that'll give me more control when applying it. Also, I'm going to get some cheap lights to setup as "raking lights" to help me see how the varnish is going on. (It's hard to see how and where the varnish has been applied, particularly after the first coat.)

Sunday the grill goes in!

BBQ Upgrade - (Assembly Part 2)

Today I was able to apply the first two coats of varnish to everything. I kind of glossed over it in my last post, but the first coat I used was Shellac. I don't know if Cypress has enough oil in it to cause problems with the varnish. So yeah, I'm being overly cautious and likely over-engineering the solution. I'm using varnish for the last three coats.

I probably could have gotten away with Thompsons Water Sealer or something, but I'm using this as practice for playing with different finishing options.  Here's what I'm using.

The Shellac was rather easy to use, cut it with denatured alcohol (1/2 and 1/2), and it gave the wood a nice color.  The following pictures were taken after the first coat of varnish was applied.  Not sure how well it comes through, but I was amazed at how nice it looked.

I have to admit, after the Shellac and two of the three coats of varnish it's looking really nice! (And to think, I was considering not bothering to finish it...)  One more coat of varnish tomorrow and then I'll let it dry for a couple of days.  I'll do the final sanding and assembly on Friday.

 

BBQ Upgrade - (Assembly Part 1)

Ok, I really need to read product descriptions more carefully. First, after checking all the measurments for the Primo and the Table to make sure they'd fit, I never thought to check the weight of the Primo.... 200lbs!!! And there's no good way to grab it. Doh! Second, the Table (which I took the time to assemble on Friday).... Yeah, that's unfinished (and given how humid my garage gets, I need to seal the wood).

Oh well, on the plus side I get to experiment with finishing.  I purchased "A Simple Varnish Finish" from the Wood Whisperer store.  (For a newbie like me, this was a huge help!)  Since the table's Cypress (and I read online that it's a slightly oily wood), I'm using Shellac for the first coat just to seal the oil in the wood.  Then I'll going to use 2-3 coats of clear gloss varnish to finish. I spent this morning sanding and putting the first coat of Shellac on it.  Here's the result:

I'll post again after I finish applying the varnish to show the final product.

 

BBQ Upgrade

My buddy Jeff over at BBQProShop.com has been coaching me in the way of "Low and Slow BBQ" over the past year. I've been doing pretty good with my Webber Kettle, but I've decided it's time to get serious about this. ;) It's time for an upgrade. And that upgrade just arrived today!!!!