Questions about smoking in a charcoal grill (Weber, PK, etc)

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You already have a Master Built gravity smoker?

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Just a plain electric smoker (not gravity smoker). It does a good job, but I find it kind of a pain in the arse. It’s probably great for lower temp smokes, because you probably can’t get below 200 deg on a charcoal smoker.

I have a PK. You can smoke on it, issue is it’s pretty small so you’re not getting a lot of food on there. Easy to control temp, just get coals away from food, throw 10-15 lit briquettes in there, and use the 4 vents to dial in your desired temp. Mine replaced a rusted out Kettle, it’s solid, just small.

Amazing Ribs site has good info on the PK, which it calls the King of Two Zone Cooking.

One zone is direct cooking/grilling over lit charcoal.

Two zone is for smoking low and slow over indirect heat.

Two zone setup is pile unlit charcoal on one side. Can use charcoal baskets, but not necessary. Use a starter cube or similar to get a fist size piece of the pile lit. Put the brisket, butt, etc. on the other side away from the fire. When doing this on a Weber kettle, I have used a pair of fire bricks to wall-off and contain the heat of the charcoal, and provide a heat sink to keep the temp more even.

Close the dampers (the keys to controlling the temp) above the charcoal and below the meat. Open the dampers above the meat and (partially) under the charcoal. This gets a flow of smoke and heat across the meat. Adjust the dampers as needed to achieve desired temp.

This will take some trial and error, so start with a cheap chicken or a forgiving pork butt that was on sale.

This review has a short video from the new Arkansas manufacturer of PK, who describes the smoking setup. LINK

This review of another PK model describes the 2-zone technique. LINK

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Just a plain electric smoker (not gravity smoker). It does a good job, but I find it kind of a pain in the arse.

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Electric smokers cannot be any easier. You plug them in, set the temperature and add wood chips every hour or two. That's it. There's nothing else you do. The hardest part is adding chips.

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How do you smoke on a charcoal grill? How do you control the temperature?

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Dad and I used 2 different approaches but with the effect.

Dad would build a tiny fire on the lid handle end and constantly feed it more charcoal a couple pieces at a time. Basically he used charcoal fuel to control the fire. Meat on the far end. Bottom vent under the fire open, top vent over the meat open, other vents closed.

I build a big pile of charcoal and barely open the 2 vents using the supply of oxygen to control the size of the fire.

Difference in quality of the product is non existent using either method. Cannot tell the difference in method between the outcomes of the 2 methods.

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Electric smokers cannot be any easier. You plug them in, set the temperature and add wood chips every hour or two. That's it. There's nothing else you do. The hardest part is adding chips.

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I always figured the hardest part about cooking with an electric smoker was fitting into the skirt.

I'm strongly considering getting a PK.

I currently have a Weber kettle and a slow n' sear. Before I got the slow n'sear, I would use the snake method regularly with great success.

But with the PK's limited capacity, OP should use unlit coals and then slowly burn through them with a small amount of lit coals and smoking wood. Make sure to close your vents, except the one where smoke is escaping, quite well.