I am an Infiniti Tech by trade and I enjoy cooking meat over fire for fun. Like many of the people here I have read tons of barbecue and smoking articles opinions and stories at all various extremes.

When it comes to grilling I have a 22.5" Weber that has cooked absolutely everything over the last five years. A few years back we bought a Char Grill Silver series, with the best of intentions. I have only used the smoker function of this beauty a few times with mixed results.

Fast forward another winter and I have recently refinished the inside of the CG (used it as a large grill and burned the smoking chamber walls) and christened it this past weekend. After several hours in the smoker and near continual monitoring and adjust to maintain a temperature at the lower end of the safety range, while mathematically the fire was 3-4x larger than it should be. This is the same reason I left this for dead a few years back when it pulled this same stunt.

This afternoon I was contemplating destroying the grill but I wanted to give it one last attempt, as instead of saying I've screwed this up and kicking myself I did the math and figured the heat loss through the the CG is unacceptable especially as I plan to rely on this to feed a group of friends.

I went to Home Depot and bought some fire barrier expanding foam and blue painters tape. My logic is to seal all the points that leak heat, which on my unit is everywhere. I plan on using the tape on the body and the creating as close to a perfect seal that will not emit toxic fumes if exposed to the heat range of a smoker.

Upon Googling modifications to the char broil on a whim I stumbled upon the same saga again and again (I don't know why I never thought of that before). I hope to be brought up to speed by the guys here when it comes to making the best out of the summer. Is modifying this thing going to retain enough heat to retain a consistent 250F or is the gauge of steel used just never going keep heat correctly and I should scrap this thing and get a new unit.

Any help y'all can impart on me would be greatly appreciated.Thanks

wait... its steel?

Weld it!

I'd be leery of foam and heat. You could try welding/brazing the leaks up, but honestly, I'd be surprised if it gains you much. How big is this thing? Maybe you could get some firebrick. That should hold the heat nicely, once you get it going anyway.