The Door Showdown LavaLock Door -vs- Cajun Bandit Door 

I just put on a Cajun Bandit door and added gasket on the door. It fits and seals great . I no longer notice any smoke leaking from the door. Instead of smoke leaking everywhere , It seems 3/4 of the smoke is exhausting through the top vent and 1/4 is escaping from the bottom of the dome lid.

Put a gasket on the Cajun Bandit door. Your Lava Lock comes with a gasket and a tube of sealer to go around the Lava Lock door. At least on the kit I saw on the website. If you were to gasket the Bandit door I would think you would see a closer match.

With the Pit barrel cooker gaining quite a following in the past few years, people who have Weber Smoky Mountain's are wanting to hang ribs in hopes to cook like the PBC. The success of the PBC is the air tight environment within the cooker. PBC designed it to where there is only one way in and one way out for air flow. It's so precise that the air intake is set to the sea level of where it resides. For a WSM to mimic the PBC it has to be air tight as well. However, the WSM is plagued with air leaks from top to bottom. One of the biggest struggles to make the WSM air tight is the access door. You can gasket the Cajun Bandit door all you want, but it's impossible to make the bottom of the door reliably air tight. Sure, the grease can eventually seal it, but open and close it once and now you have an air leak you'll be fighting against for the rest of your cook. Through my research I have found that the LavaLock Door is the only reliable door out there that will seal completely every single time you use it. If the WSM people are wanting to cook exactly like the PBC you're either gonna have to weld shut the door opening or you're gonna need to get the LavaLock Door. P.S. I don't work for the LavaLock people, I just want to use my WSM like a PBC but with options for better air/temp control.

Nice breakdown.

thanks for this, got lavalock door well I will at christmas, and was wondering how it compared to the cajun bandit. nice data so glad I went with ore expensive one, but like you said will break even after burning a few bags of charcoal.

I gave a "like", but with some reservation. I have been using the WSM 18.5 and first two cooks it ran too hot as I frittered with the door and vents. Then I realized that if I fully loaded the basket and used Minion method I had NO NEED of the door for even 24 hours keeping only the front lower intake vent slightly open, the top exhaust about 3/4 open and thus cooking at 230F to 250F at upper cook grate level. By NOT opening the OE door, the leaks around decreased to almost nil once warm. I never run with all inlets open and top open once the hot coals have been placed upon the basket of charcoal for a couple of minutes.

Cajun Bandit stainless steel door with lavalock gasket = sexy AF.

Have you thought about trying this test at a normal smoking temp of 225, 250 or 275 to see real charcoal burn time. I personally dont know anyone who runs a smoker to the 400 - 500+ temps you had in a WSM. That's seems like grilling not smoking. I'm not ripping on you just curious about realistic burn times.

Thank you so much for this comparison video. Weber should get rid of that flimsy access door and provide a better door and square off the access to the charcoal chamber that is behind the door instead of the round access they provide. I mean the smoker/cooker isn’t cheap and over $500 bucks brand new. But one thing about the smoker/cooker is that you don’t have to do a lot of work with it when you smoke the meats you love. I love mine and best investment in smokers imo.

You can install the gasket along with the Cajun bandit for more efficiency. Little to no leakage after that. Requires no skill and u can still use the same grill cover unlike the lavalock ... these are major cons for me.

Nice breakdown, but I Gabe a couple of concerns: I saw what looked like significant rust at the top of the Lava Lock. That could be a factor. And the use of the factory and Cajun bandit as a chute for adding charcoal, but that’s offset with the longer burn time. So probably a wash for that.

I like that you did a comparison, but your bias is so obvious I stopped watching at the halfway mark.