Meet my pit: Brinkmann Smoke 'N Pit (Basic)

My Christmas vacation took me deep into the heart of eastern Texas, which it would seem is big time BBQ country. Every little tiny town as a BBQ joint and the air often smells of wood fire. I was appalled to see lakeside vendors selling seasoned split white oak as campfire wood! That's cooking wood man!

Unfortunately, I was unable to take the time to sample any of the local BBQ fare. Although I admit it was hard to pass up a place called Big Fatty's BBQ (don't ask where it is...after a 1600 mile round trip I really don't have any idea!) But it was a little easier to pass up the converted trailer house boasting "BBQ-Mexican-Catfish" in big yellow letters on a sign nearly as big as the building.

Anyway, since vacation had my remodeling project and BBQ temporarily on hold, I decided to post a review of my pit.

My pit is a 2005 model Brinkmann Smoke 'N Pit. It's the basic model from Walmart. Dimensionally, it is nearly identical to the current model (which is the Smoke 'N Pit Pitmaster Deluxe), but the air vent and smokestack are different.

For the price I think this is a great pit. It's not perfect, but isn't bad. It's much better than a vertical smoker; that's for sure! I have only found a few weaknesses:

1) the firebox door hinges warp in time and it doesn't close flat. Even with the vent closed, it's like having it half open because of all the air sucking around the door.

2) the firebox isn't deep enough. It can only burn for 2-3 hours before filling up with ash and starting to bury the airflow. It only has maybe 4 inches under the firebox grate...I think 8 should be a minimum.

3) It's hard to get the right temperature for smoking. It seems it is easy to get a 180-200 degree fire going, but it makes thick heavy sooty white smoke. So you put the air and fuel to it until the smoke goes blue and now it's 250-300 degrees. I think it is an airflow problem and possibly related to the size of the opening between the firebox and smoking chamber. I think it needs to either be smaller, or moved over with 6-12" of dead space between the firebox and smoke chamber.

4) The warming/holding rack is nearly useless if you're smoking large cuts of meat or poultry. With the rack installed, you can't close the lid on a 12# turkey. I work without the rack even installed.

One of the best features of this pit is that it can be used as a plain grill too. Rather than building a fire in the firebox, it has a charcoal pan that hangs in the bottom of the smoking chamber. It's adjustable for height (although, like the firebox, the smoking chamber should be deeper too). Just load in up with charcoal and wood chunks and you've got a grill.

Overall I'd give my pit 4 out of 5 stars. If it was $50 higher price I'd give it 3. Pretty good equipment for the price.

Cabinet progress

I'm still here. Somehow, among the delays and frustrations of harvest, I was able to slowly keep working on sanding the kitchen cabinets. Mercifully, harvest is over now. Harvest was to this season what shooting a wounded horse is to it.

On Wednesday, I got done with the sanding! It only took 38 hours to do it :P

The cabinet face frames and door frames were a mess. Some were sanded, but only to what looks to have been 60 grit. Others still bore the marks from a thickness planer. The door panels are oak faced plywood that appears to have been factory sanded to 100 grit.

So, I sanded all the frame members with 80 grit. Then I did everything with 120 grit. Then finished off with 220 grit. Much of the sanding of the door frames was done by hand. Just too many nooks and crannies for a power sander, but I am very thankful to have a good power sander for where it worked!

Since the sanding is done, I have gotten started on the rest of the finishing. The staining is going very fast. I have already stained all the drawer fronts and all but 5 of the doors.



I have also topcoated the drawer fronts with polyurethane. I decided to use aerosols for that since they are small, intricate, and well suited for spraying. They got 3 coats of semi-gloss.

I still have a can left and will use it on a couple of the small cabinet doors. Other than that I'm planning on brushing the poly on....probably 2 coats. Oh boy that might be a long ordeal; dunno if I could endure 3 coats. We'll see...