Oklahoma Joe's Highland Reverse Flow Offset Smoker

I've been cooking for years, but this is my first smoker. I did lots of shopping around, watched lots of YouTube videos and strongly debated wheather to go old school or go with an automatic type smoker. Obviously I went old school and I'm glad I did! I jumped in with both feet by smoking a brisket on my first go around. The brisket didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but I learned a lot about the Oklahoma Joes. My next adventure was Back Ribs. Wow! They were a little overcooked but the flavor was fantastic. At this very moment I am smoking more ribs, using the 3-2-1 method and keeping the temperature between 200 and 225 degrees F. I used a rub with 1 part kosher salt, 3 parts coarse ground black pepper, a dash of garlic powder and a dash of onion powder. Three hours of smoking, two hours wrapped in foil with 3/4 cup apple juice and back on the smoker, then around one hour on the smoker unwrapped. If you are the kind of person who is as interested in the process as you are with the final product, this smoker is for you. There is definitely a learning curve, but luckily there is a wealth information about smoking online, which makes it well within anyone's reach. The Oklahoma Joe's isn't as heavy as a professional smoker, but it is well built and it's perfect for the home cook who wants to produce authentic smoked foods. I purchased the reverse flow smoker only because there is the option of doing just offset smoking or reverse flow smoking. So far I've only used the reverse flow option and I'm very pleased with the results.

Didnt smoke with it yet but the assembly and burn in went very well. Only thing I wish was designed differently is closer spec on smoke stack and design for securing legs and stack other than a clamp bolt design. I did use the door clamps and OK mod seals. Put the seals around both doors and between 2 halves of firebox and not between firebox and cooking chamber. Needed 2 rolls of seal ti finish but have plenty left over. Did not have any smoke leak between firebox and cook chamber without seals. Still have some leaking around doors with the seals but very minimal! My biggest piece of advice is use charcoal to burn in while following instructions. I did not have any bubbling or peeling anywhere. With chimney in traditional port and baffles out I used 1 chimney full of charcoal in the fire box and 2 in the cook chamber on the charcoal grates spaced out time wise to raise temp slowly and careful not to exceed max temp of 450 so I targeted 400 using dampers. Very happy with smoker! Temps did not swing and were rather steady. When using temp probes the temp guage (the gauge glows in the dark!!!) that came with the smoker was very close to probe reading when probe was placed at the same level.