SM 160 "explosion"

Nothing to worry about, never has happened to me, but here is some thoughts on it... boom or big bang theory

Thanks! The bang seems to occur early in the cook like described there. Scares the crap out of you when it happens.

I have had this happen before I always thought it was because the smoker was just warming up and the metal interior was was flexing

Cpt. Hamm,
These bangs are known as "burps", and they can be shocking. From what I gathered it is the result of over loading the wood box. I ran 2 SM-160's 24/7, and when I had a load of butts or brskts I would STUFF the wood-box to get a heavy bark. Within the 1st hour of cooking, the smoker is trying to get up to temp with a load of cold meat, so it over-shoots the temp and then comes back down to your chosen cook-temp. So during that overshoot, the combination of very little oxygen and the spike in temp causes a brief moment of combustion. When I was cooking chickens and ribs, I used much less wood and the burps rarely occurred. Bottom line, it's a little combustion. Be careful not to whip the door open right away, because adding a burst of oxygen will ignite your wood, but is easily blown out.

in the fire dept. we call it a backdraft....albeit a small one.