Newb trying to start LARGE -- need some advice

lazarus · Aug 5, 2011

mag409 said:
You may get some movement from the plate at 30" wide while cooking, but your temps are gonna be below 400F so the movement at the baffle plate will be barely visible to the eye. If your concerned about it run a piece of angle lengthwise down the center of the baffle and have it installed with 1" welds on a 2" center. By welding in sections you will minimize the stress added by fully welding it and also creat a nice stiffener.

Again, from my own research there are some discussions and posts regarding the area at the end of the baffle plate. The gap should be equal to the stack cross section plus 10%. Your using a 6" stack so your cross sectional area is 28.26sqin + 10% = 31.06 sqin. So if your baffle is 30" wide, you are only going to want a 1" gap at the end of your baffle plate and tank give or take. Given your tank is round you should be safe to run the baffle to the end of the square of the tank and leave the curved area open. This is what I did on mine and it has been working great..

Only other thing I see is your drawing dimensions aren't adding up so you may want to go back and check them out. If you add up all of the vertical dimensions you only have 42" accounted for. You still have 6" in there to work with.

Looking like a nice unit in the works.

lazarus · Aug 5, 2011

Thanks mag409,

I just guessed at a 6" stack; couldn't imagine I would need something bigger.

good idea on the angle. redid the drawing, but not the dimensions. I'll proof em before we weld, but I keep it all in memory anyway ;-)

we have some 1" channel iron that I can use as a stiffener.

Do you think it will be hard to get this cooker up to 350 deg. and maintain it (for cooking faster on some things)?

thanks

mag409 said:
You may get some movement from the plate at 30" wide while cooking, but your temps are gonna be below 400F so the movement at the baffle plate will be barely visible to the eye. If your concerned about it run a piece of angle lengthwise down the center of the baffle and have it installed with 1" welds on a 2" center. By welding in sections you will minimize the stress added by fully welding it and also creat a nice stiffener.

Again, from my own research there are some discussions and posts regarding the area at the end of the baffle plate. The gap should be equal to the stack cross section plus 10%. Your using a 6" stack so your cross sectional area is 28.26sqin + 10% = 31.06 sqin. So if your baffle is 30" wide, you are only going to want a 1" gap at the end of your baffle plate and tank give or take. Given your tank is round you should be safe to run the baffle to the end of the square of the tank and leave the curved area open. This is what I did on mine and it has been working great..

Only other thing I see is your drawing dimensions aren't adding up so you may want to go back and check them out. If you add up all of the vertical dimensions you only have 42" accounted for. You still have 6" in there to work with.

Looking like a nice unit in the works.

mag409 · Aug 5, 2011

Depending on fuel it may be difficult to maintain 350, although the thermal mass will help you once you get it there. If you burn wood only then 350 should be no problem. Lump would be second and briquettes last in terms of heat output. On my buddys small patio model we built, he can run at 250 solid on briquettes, 275 on lump and well into the upper 300's on wood. One advantage he has over the standard RF design is that his firebox is directly below the cook chamber so he is using all available heat from the box. Something to consider is adding a layer of firebrick on top of the baffle plate and then sandwiching it in with another baffle plate on top to seal it up. Once this comes up to temp you will be alot more stable when you open the doors to the cookchamber. He did this and can recover from opening the door in under 3 minutes, where before it took him about 10 minutes to restabilize his smoker.

The other option you have is to build a charcoal/lump basket that can sit on top of the baffle plate. You can fire up the main firebox to get the unit up to a maintainable level and add the charcoal basket after to get the cook chamber a little hotter. Of course a bigger firebox would help alleviate some of the issues with running hotter, but I understand your concern on the trailer config.

lazarus · Aug 8, 2011

Well, not having a truck big enough to haul an 800 lb. tank sucks.

The guy I boughyt the tank from was supposed to deliver last week, and still

NO TANK!

I I will post a pre-shot of the door cutout annd build shots periodically as/if we progress.

thanks for the help, and I will post as things move along

lazarus · Aug 25, 2011

The FAT-600 finally delivered!

The fella with the tank finally got it delivered. If it had been 2" taller, the truck boom we had wouldn't have gotten it off the trailer. It has been welded on before (the capped-flange on top), so safety shouldn't be an issue for cutting the doors, etc.. The welder plans to use a thin-blade for all the cutting.

The FatMan - I estimate about 600 gal. volume.

More images as the project continues. Here's another chubby to give it some scale. I am 6' tall and 320 lbs.

Should be able to fit about 10 of me in there ;-)

SmokinAl · Aug 25, 2011

Can't wait to see the progress on this one!

Should be a great build!

gary s · Aug 25, 2011

You said you were going with a 4" stack, Did you look at the smoker ratio chart ? It helped me a great deal to determin the stack size, length and all my openings. Just put (Ratio chart for smoker) in your search engine. I am including a picture of the one we built this was our first build and I wanted a reverse flow.

daggerdoggie · Aug 25, 2011

That's a big project. Looking forward to the progress.

solaryellow · Aug 25, 2011

If I stumbled upon a tank that size I would strongly consider a gravity feed rotisserie smoker.

Based on some of the statements and questions you have asked, are you familiar with the pit calculator? It would help you a lot with the design. Here is a fairly simple html version of it: http://www.feldoncentral.com/bbqcalculator.html

Can't wait to see what you do with it Lazarus.

lazarus · Aug 26, 2011

I'd love to do a roto, but the build would be really difficult (and $$$$$$$)

have to settle for a double-stack rack system.

thanks

solaryellow · Aug 26, 2011

Lazarus said:
I'd love to do a roto, but the build would be really difficult (and $$$$$$$)

have to settle for a double-stack rack system.

thanks

True. but it would be badass.

lazarus · Oct 23, 2012

I didn't have time to do a step=by-step, but here's a couple of images of the finished product. I decided to NOT make it fully RF, but it does have a baffle over the smoke entry that extends about 1/2 the length of the tank. The tank is 3/8" thick! The completed rig is 3300 lbs..

7320612384_9b9d752fb0.jpg

lazarus
Oct 23, 2012

8112592505_ae6553fd5b.jpg

lazarus
Oct 23, 2012

frosty · Oct 23, 2012

Congratulations Lazarus! Now that is a masterpiece.!

Great job!!! I bet it can literally hold a TON of meat.

LOTS of good eatin' will be coming off that smoker!

ribwizzard · Oct 23, 2012

so how much rack space did you end up with?

Newb trying to start LARGE -- need some advice

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