If you're looking for high temp gasket material, I would recommend Viton/FKM. It's a fluorocarbon that is usually good to 400-450 degrees. The cheap stuff you normally see for rubber gasketing is Nitrile/Buna-N, which is only good to about 200ish degrees. EPDM is more expensive and good to about 350 or so. Silicone is another good middle ground material cost-wise that is rated for pretty high temperatures.AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:That's a pretty normal range. But, for some items especially poultry, I like a higher temp at the end to get a little crisp on the skin. Brats don't need to cook at 250, either, I've found. They get plenty of smoke and lose no moisture a little hotter. Jalapeno poppers (jalapenos stuffed with creamcheese/cheddar cheese and wrapped with bacon) need to start slow to get the cheese hot and inner side of the bacon hot, but need the heat at the end to crisp the bacon. Etc.lukethedrifter wrote:Seems high. 225-250F is the range I’m familiar with.
For those instances where you'd want 250 to climb to 300 pretty quickly, it has trouble doing that especially with the water pan in there. With a big green egg or pellet grill or electric smoker, I think you can get that extra temp much more quickly. But, to be fair, we're talking about a very specific complaint. And, as I mentioned, without the water pan, this problem is somewhat mitigated.
Still, if you're asking if I like it because you're in the market, I can't give it a big ole thumbs up and lead you down a path without pointing out any faults as well.
Another thing, at first I noticed that it 'leaks' a lot of air. So I went ahead and got some gasket to put around the door in the middle section and around the top ring where the lid sits. That seemed to restrict the flow of air out of the smoker and as such prevented hotter fires/higher temps. This makes sense as there are three vents letting air in and only one letting it out. The gasket at the lid burnt off after about 6 months and I haven't replaced it. The gasket around the door remains in tact though. Probably because the hot air rose and kept trying to get out at the lid melting the gasket adhesive.
But, yeah, for a pork butt or ribs or anything that requires a constant 225-250 temp for hours on end, it's great, imo.
You could go with a more expensive polymer like Kalrez/FFKM, which is a perfluorocarbon that is rated for 550ish degrees, but that stuff gets pretty expensive.
Places like McMaster-Carr and Grainger have the stuff for fairly cheap if you're willing to cut the lengths yourself to fit.