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Johnson Smokers made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:43 am
by Damon54
Looking for a new Smoker and scoured eBay just for kicks. I know most of the mfgr's so please let's not go down that trail.

What I saw of interest were some pits made in Ennis that I found worthy of further investigation. I asked a question via eBay and received a nice long informative reply from a gentlemen named Chad.
Anyone know anything about his products or quality/performance??

Note: we have since confirmed that the cooker referenced above is a Johnson Smoker.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:33 am
by OSD
Since you already know most of the mfgr's and don't want to go down that trail and you received a nice long informative reply from a gentlemen named Chad.
Maybe if you told us his company name or brand name he uses on his pits, then we could be more helpful and not go down the guessing trail again.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:28 am
by Damon54
Jim,
There is no name given at eBay. I will post a link and his reply when not on my IPad.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:20 am
by 3 star redneck
I bet it Big Hat pits, if it is they good quality, at at a razonable price. I have a good Friend, That is a dealer in colleyville, if you want th info let me know. He has 2-4 models, to looks at

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:24 am
by Damon54
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... TQ:US:1348" target="_blank" target="_blank

Note: our discussion was on a different design than this offset smoker. Hope this link works.

Response to a couple of questions via eBay:

"Yeah, we can go a single door, thats not a problem, we might just need to counterweight it for you. Also, we build this smoker with caster wheels on the stand im going to post that pic up on ebay here in a moment so take a look when you get this message.

On the firebox, no issue there, It has a fairly large door on the front, easy for a shovel to access and dip the ashes out.

I will say we are very happy to be one of the only if not the only manufacture of what we call the T design smoker. It is hands down the most even cooking smoker out there. We build offset firebox smokers as well and they are very even cooking also being that they are reverse flow. But there always has to be a winner and the T design is it. Plus it is more efficient on wood consumption also with the box being diretly underneath the main... there is little heat loss.

If you'd like send me a contact number and we can talk over this more in detail about exactly what you want and yes being in Dallas saves you some cash on shipping. This is the busy season for us we have 6 units to build right now so getting a jump on an order is always key versus waiting untill you need it yesterday and trying to get something going.

will wait to hear back from you.

Thanks
chad j
9729210123

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:47 am
by OSD
I think this may be who you are talking about. He signed up as a forum member and posted a couple times in the for sale ads.

chadwickz71 is his member name. The last time he was on this forum was...Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:35 am

Sorry, but I don't remember anything about the cookers he was selling at that time.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:26 pm
by Damon54
Thanks OSD!
That would certainly appear to be the same guy.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:43 pm
by Damon54
Going to Ennis to chat further with Chad about a custom pit.
Found another site that my IPad will not find but the Pits for sale by an outfit named Johnson Custom Metal fabrication that are definitely the same origin.

Chad has confirmed that this is his site. Going to visit the facility tomorrow and talk about a custom to best suit our needs. Will report back.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 6:16 pm
by Damon54
Made the journey yesterday out to Ennis. Chad was a tad younger than I expected but a nice enough fellow. He had a "T" Smoker wheeled out of the shop upon arrival since he thought that would be our primary interest.

Build quality looks to be pretty high but he does leave welds a little rougher than I would like. He seems to believe the T is his most efficient design but I am also in need of a vertical section which he currently only offers in his offset firebox models. T means the firebox is directly under the main chamber. These feature flat end caps as opposed to rounded with the non "T" models. He seems to have a pretty good grasp on tuning plates to balance cooking in the main chamber. The trailer model we viewed for sample purposes had the firebox below the vertical chamber & had a method to pipe heat/smoke directly into that chamber if one wanted to use it to heat, otherwise there was a more traditional indirect method.

He had no issue with our preference of a 60" single door for the main. I really like his design
to control air flow from his double smoke stack. I also like that I could easily use the main chamber as a large grill with few adjustments.
Looks like we will put an order in on Monday & hope he can meet his time frame of 4 weeks.

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:25 am
by ezbbq
Be sure and post pics when ya pick it up!

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 10:26 pm
by Damon54
http://www.johnsonsmokers.com/index.php ... 5&Itemid=2"

This the Pit we have put on order. Total length 9' 10"

First Change is a single door opening for larger cuts such as whole hogs, lamb etc.



Sent from my iPad

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:18 pm
by grtpain
any updates on this pit? I have also been looking for a new pit and I really like this one if you get it or someone else has one I would love to see a review on this pit. thanks

Re: T-design heat flow made in Ennis?

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 3:32 pm
by Damon54
We are 2-3 weeks out from picking ours up. Met with Chad on Thursday and got him our stainless steel grate material and gave him the 20% deposit.

Johnson SmoKers reverse heat flow made in Ennis

Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:16 am
by Damon54
Rented a U-Haul Open trailer and picked this beast up today. A tractor lifted it into the air and we simply backed underneath.

We estimated the weight to be between 1500lbs -1600lbs and with the firebox and vertical chamber at the same end we were under prepared to get it rolled across the grass to its final resting spot. Two layers of plywood resembled drywall after a frat party in short order.Pics and further details to follow soon.

Re: Johnson Smokers made in Ennis?

Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:22 am
by brentski
Congratulations!