The Chairmaker

Personally I think that the whole "soaking into the ceramic and tainting it" is little more than an old wives tale. Maybe if you used bunker fuel or used engine oil to start your fire, but who would do that? Alcohol burns because it is so volatile. Does anyone seriously think that you going to be able to detect any traces of anything that volatile after it's been exposed to cooking temperatures for hours?? What about the thousands of people that use isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) to clean the surfaces when they are changing the felt gaskets?

You're overthinking it. Sealant can and does deteriorate over time. A tube of RTV high-temp sealant costs only a few bucks and you could have solved that problem in less time than it took to type the post. Consider it part of normal maintenance, just like changing the gaskets, cleaning the grills or doing a deep-clean.Splodge a bit of sealer over those gaps, or if you want to be anal, scrape the old sealer off and re-apply it. The first way will take literally 1 minute, the second maybe 30 minutes. Then crack on with making delicious food on your barbecue. Don't sweat the small stuff.

They've been out-of-stock for ages here in the UK. That boat that blocked the Suez really has hammered supplies of everything from Asia. I've finally managed to pick up one that has appeared in stock, so am looking forward to trying it out.

Are these sold under licence? The Inkbird controller looks identical, down to the carry case. https://inkbird.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/isc-007bw

Until very recent years, the main use for cobalt was in the fossil fuel industry and stainless steel manufacturing. I didnt see too many crying then.

Snow I can cope with. Try a wet Lancashire in December where the sun doesn't bother until about 9AM and disappears at 3pm. Where it can rain for two weeks without taking a breath. When it's not raining it's drizzling. Lancashire weather is mould's best friend. Mind you, my neighbours think I'm nuts too, especially when I was up at 3AM on Christmas morning lighting the barbecue to smoke a brisket.

Too late....you're already waaaaay down the rabbit hole when you have a profile on a BBQing forum..... I only use the garden centre charcoal when I'm doing a cleaning burn. About all it's fit for is getting rid of the mould that builds up after a winter break!

Fogon is also very good stuff. it needs a bit more airflow than other lump that I've tried, but it is very good. https://www.fogonuk.co.uk/ I've not tried this yet, but I hear very good things about it: https://globaltic.ee/product-category/charcoal/ This is my go-to charcoal. The quality can be a little bit variable, but I live close to them and it's only £12 per bag collected. I've never had a bad bag from them, but the sizes can vary quite a bit. https://www.logsdirect.co.uk/charcoal/restaurant-grade-charcoal

They seem to be. However, they are coated steel. The steel is magnetic so I am guessing that they are just ordinary mild steel, so if the coating gets damaged then I would think that they will rust.

Look at the underneath of the bottom airvent. There's often no sealant there and air leaks in there. That means you can get a.bit of a runaway even with the bottom vent fully closed. Run a bead of high-temp silicone sealant along the bottom to seal it up. The top vent also needs some felt gasket around the ceramic. Cut holes for the bolts before reinstalling the top vent. Do both of those and it will make it a lot easier to get stable temps on these. It'll also help the charcoal to extinguish a lot more quickly when you shut it all down.

My new Big Joe was delivered (in the UK) with a damaged gasket. I reported it via their web system at 10PM ;last Wednesday. On Friday morning I received an email looking for some more information. By 11AM I had a confirmation that the warranty issue was accepted and that a new gasket had been dispatched. I can't complain about that service! Quick, easy and efficient.

This is the third time that I've used the Inkbird controller and the first on my new Big Joe. I had to make a backing plate for the air vent connection as the standard plate was too short for the large opening on the Big Joe. Over a 10 hour smoke it controlled the temperature perfectly....maybe a 4 C variance at worst. Cons: The standard pate was tooo small for the Big Joe air vent. Getting the app to connect to the device was a pig. I had to disable the multi-channel WiFi on my router and only use the 2.4Ghz band. once connected though it reconnects with no problems. The leads are a tad short. The airpipe just about connects with the controller sitting on the side-shelf. Ideally if the probe leads were another 12 inches longer then they'd be perfect. Pros: It does exactly what it says on the tin. The temp didn't vary that much at all despite my Big Joe being in the open. The weather varied a lot during the overnight cook- the ambient air temp dropped by about 8C, we had some blustery wind and it rained heavily for about an hour. Its probably one of the cheapest temp controllers. The supplier regularly posts discounts on a forum I go on and I got it for £169 delivered.

Well spotted!

It's a flat plate shaped to the profile of the firebox. It fits into the cast iron plate at the bottom of the firebox, dividing the firebox in two. Great for banking the charcoal towards the back when using a Joetisserie. They used to come as standard in the Big Joe's.

Its not blood, by the way. https://steakschool.com/learn/red-liquid-steak-plate-not-blood/