Reddit reviews Weber 7439 Replacement Charcoal Grate,10.50" W

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WU7PWO?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

hi! yea i took Alton Brown's approach and modified it a bit, so that's a good place to start. i didnt like how he just dropped the whole electric hot plate into the bottom of the planter, there's no way to adjust the temperature knob without disassembling the whole structure, which is very counterproductive when youre trying to maintain a nice even temperature for smoking.

instead i unscrewed the heating element from the plastic body of this electric hot plate and re-wired it inside the planter; this way i can adjust the temperature from outside the planter without taking everything apart. the wood stakes you mentioned are therefore sitting on top of the plastic housing and supporting the planter, and are not in direct contact with the cooking element, thus not catching fire/smoking. i put the stakes/planks there to allow for some air to enter the system from the bottom of the planter.

i used a 10" diameter weber grate i had lying around from an old charcoal grill although you can find them on amazon too, and i can confirm it is made of steel. im not sure what you mean by a chrome surface, unless youre referring to stainless steel? the only real difference between the two is the heat retention properties of the material, but i had the lid on mine throughout the cooking process and kept an even temp the whole time so that wasn't really an issue for me.

smoking time is really variable for each smoker from what ive gathered. ive read people saying to smoke at 250F for 4 hours or some slight variation on those numbers, but really you just want to monitor the internal temp of the bird and wait for it to get to 165F.

I tossed my bird breast side down on the smoker at 10am and tried getting the smoking temp up to about 225-235F, but that took an hour (this was my first time, took a while to figure out how everything works out). after it reached temp i let it sit for a little while then took the top off to check on the bird (bad idea) and the temperature dropped by a lot, so i had to regain my temp, which took another half hour, putting me at 11:45am. i let it sit at that temperature for an hour, thinking that it had only cooked for 1 hour at smoking temp, and when i came to flip the bird at 12:45pm, the bird was done! in fact it was a little over-done, with breast temperature hovering around 170F. that puts the total time the chicken was in the smoker at about 3 hours at 225-235F.

i expected a longer cooking time since i was smoking at a lower temperature than what i had read online, but i guess the small size of my smoker put the bird closer to the heat source causing it to cook faster. again i think cooking time is really variable, so just monitor your meat to see when it reaches the appropriate internal temp. let me know if you have other questions/concerns, ill be happy to answer them. good luck smoking!

Mine is 10.5" in diameter (using two of these grates criss-crossed and bailing wire-tied). On the sides I used expanded metal (two sheets as found at Home Depot), bolted together with some legs on bottom. I made a handle out of the C-shaped bolts from hardware store. I used the Instructables UDS basket as guide.

Mine requires refilling through long smokes, but my smoker is not a true UDS (instead, it's two barrels forming a "T"), so I believe it goes through more fuel because of this. I was also limited by the door size I have though, so if you can make a bigger one, I suggest it.

sorry. I probably explained it wrong. All weber grills have two grates. One that you put your meat on the the 2nd smaller one on the bottom that you put the charcoal on.

When I normally smoke on my weber grill (some people say that these 3 words should not be in the same sentence, but I digress) The top grate holds the meat to one side and the charcoal is held off to the other side with these rails on the bottom smaller grate.

So, on the bottom grate you have a portion of the grate being used by the charcoal and the rest free space. In this picture you see aluminum foil covering the bottom grate not taken up by the charcoal basket. (this is what I do) I have read that you can place some meat on the aluminum foil on the lower grate and then have 3 pieces of meat smoking.

I’d suggest getting a charcoal grate from a 14 kettle grill. It’s just the right size for a full size chimney without being as easily unbalanced as using the large grate from the normal grill.

Can’t tell for sure if you have the mini chimney or a full size one but if the full size one, I’ve also found that if you use the chimney upside down, putting the charcoal in the bottom instead of the top, it helps save a lot of charcoal if you’re just searing a couple of things. I also found that the Weber mini chimney uses just about the exact amount to fill the bottom of the full size chimney so I start the charcoal in the mini then pour it into the upside down regular chimney for more surface area.

Weber 7439 Replacement Charcoal Grate https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WU7PWO

I think you've got the grill grate. The ECB charcoal pan is 15", and should be ~13" inside the bowl. The Smokey Joe cooking grate ( Weber 7431) is 14.5", but the charcoal grate ( Weber 7439 ) is 10.5".

You could also buy the 10" Brinkmann charcoal grate, which might work better than the Weber 10.5". Consider drilling some holes in the bottom if you do this, as it also helps airflow.

edit: use a few pieces of brick to prop the grate up a bit, otherwise. So long as there is 1" of gap or less on the outside it should be fine for briquettes.