My Oklahoma Joe Drum Smoker

What has been going on in the BBQ world, is every fall Walmart puts stuff on clearance. in our case, BBQ smokers. And the prices are always too good to pass up.


In 2018 was the Oklahoma Joe Bandera. They sliced the price on this one , if I remember correctly, about 60%. Originally $379 and it was  clearance priced at $280. I wanted to be part of this sale badly. But alas, the Walmart close to me did not have this smoker. So I totally missed out.

Everyone that got the Bandera was posting pictures of great cooks and bragging about how they got it so cheap. The reason I wanted it because it was a vertical smoker. I have a Brinkman vertical smoker and really enjoyed it. But it was small and limited on what it could do. Thus I thought this would work great.

Also, I have a Oklahoma Joe Longhorn offset smoker. I did nothing but fight with this thing to get it to work properly. I would have a raging fire int he firebox, but very little heat going into the cook chamber. I spent a fortune on mods to get it to work. I was pretty frustrated and wanted to sell it.

But since, this sale came and went, I did try working with the Longhorn some more. Everyone on Facebook started talking about a modification of extending the stack. add a 18" long exhaust pipe to it. I did this and it made a world of difference. I had heat galore in the cook chamber. But, in my quest for mods, I had removed the damper from the firebox to use a fan. Could not find it anywhere, so I had very bad control of the heat. I ordered a new damper and tried it out. Things went very well.

During the summer of 2019, OK Joe released the Bronco. It is a vertical drum smoker with a pan to hold enough coals to do long cooks. I had a strong desire to own one. it had a good price of $299.
But again, no store in the area had any in stock. Also, with getting the offset pretty much working, getting another smoker just wasn't justified.

Along comes Fall of 2019. To my surprise, Walmart put this smoker on clearance. Marked it down to $189. I was beside myself, cause of course, the Walmart near here, again, did not have this smoker. Not even in the closer cities. Again, I was watching another great sale pass me by.

Then one day, I was browsing the market Place on Facebook. Low and behold,  someone had one for sale. Even better, it was still in the box, never opened or used and for sale for $169. Lower than the Walmart clearance But it was 150 miles away.

Now where it was located was along the way when I went to work in Hays. But who knows when I was going to be there. I thought hard deciding if I should send the guy the money and have him hold until I could get there.

Then we got a phone call that a customer in that area needed help. That was it. My son was going to do the service call and he could get pick up the smoker for me!. I contacted the seller, told him what and when. He said "he will be waiting." everything was set.

My son stopped by, checked it out and called that it was a good deal. I sent the money, he loaded it up and I had a new smoker!

This smoker works like a dream. Once you get the dampers set, it holds that temp for hours on end. My wife teases me that I bought a pellet smoker as easy as this one is to operate. I have tried cooking several things.  Here are some of them.

Pork Steaks

Brisket Flat

Bacon Wrapped Turkey Breast

Chuck Roast

Cowboy Steak

Turkey Wings and Thighs

Christmas 2019

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas with family and friends. Here at our house we had family, my wife, two sons and myself. Also my oldest son, Sean, brought his girlfriend and one of his room mates. It was their first time to have Christmas dinner with us. His room mate had been at a few of our BBQ's though.


It was rather unusually warm day, highs in the 60's. So we all sat outside, had beers, while my bronco smoker did it's thing with a 6.5 pound rib-eye roast.This took about 3.5 hours at around 230-250 degrees. Cooked until it was 130 internal, then wrapped it in foil and then wrapped in towels placed in a cooler for 30 minutes. We started cooking about 3:15 in the afternoon and finished almost 7pm. Then we started on the sides.

I finally tried my hand at twice baked potatoes. One of the YouTube channels I follow featured them and I just had to make them. Unfortunately, we could not get some of the ingredients he called for, but was able to procure another recipe that did just as well. the only change made in it was I added half and half to make it more creamy. They were a hit as well.

After the roast had rested, we sliced it up and it was perfect!
Nice juicy redness, and it did not bleed everywhere! Cut up enough slices for everyone and all that was left was the ends. You really don't want the ends as it is covered with salt and seasoning.


 








My wife was quite happy for the table my youngest son got us for such events. We put everything on it and allowed us to have a serving line.
Put it all together we ended with this. Nice glass of wine, rib-eye roast, twice baked potato and green bean casserole.  everyone was quite pleased.

Adding Pages

For some of my posts that I want to be seen always, I will be adding them to the PAGES list on the Left.
This way it will keep this area a little more cleaner and have space for short articles of information.

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