500 gallon smoker build

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Can you fab up a square or rectangular stack? Cut a piece of 6" down middle add some sheet, make it oval? Just typing out loud. Your build is looking good so far.

RG
 
If you fab-ed your stack out of plate 8 x 8 "  it would need to be only 30.68 "  tall

Gary
 
I agree, he said he was having trouble finding 6 and 8 inch pipe, just an option and trying to keep the stack a reasonable length 

Gary
 
I got 6' of 6" pipe well it was supposed to be 6 in but it's actually 5.5" the guy gave me the wrong pipe but hey for 20$ I ain't gonna bitch!!!
 
 According to Feldon's  5.5" needs to be  82.64 " tall     Way to tall,   2 - 5.5"  about 42"   still pretty tall,    500 gal is a pretty big smoker besides working properly you want it to look good, especially after you put hours of work into it. That was a good deal on the 5.5"   It it were me I would keep checking and find some 8"   One that size smoker it will look and work better.  The problem with real long smoke stacks besides looking funny is cooling, As the smoke travels up a long stack it cools, cooler air is heaver and you don't get the flow that you really need, not saying it won't flow, just not as efficiently. Large smokers need to flow a lot of air, heat and smoke, you don't want stale smoke staying in your cook chamber. A 500 gal smoker needs 1,964 cu. in vol.. The problem is length  you can get the same volume from 2" if it is 635" long . My opinion from the smokers we have built, we try to go with a stack that is proportional to the cook chamber, and  as Dave said around 30 to 35"   now that being said 8" would need to be 39",  according to the calculator  But when you get to that diameter the length is not as important, you can easily  make it 30 to 35 " with no problem

Gary
 
Well I'm committed now I have alread built the exhaust outlet cut the openings for the stacks and for the outlet from the cooking chamber to the exhaust stack adapter[emoji]128553[/emoji]
 
If I add a 4" stack to the exhaust stack system will that work?? My figuring I could shorten up the 5.5" stacks
 
I wouldn't do that I'd just use the 5.5"   how long did you decide to make them?   I have been doing some research on stack size and length 

One opinion I read was when you get to the 5" , 6" and above that the length becomes irrelevant . it doe's not need to as long as what Feldons calculates , Feldons takes the cubic inches and converts them to whatever diameter pipe you put in to that length,

Here is one of the answer I got back ;

Gary-

    This is a bit tricky because the vent is used to control combustion as well as adjust the temperature. But the pit calculator is incorrect and your intuition closer to the mark.

    Hot air is less dense than cold air. So the combusted air in the smoker wants to rise. This motion is impeded by the friction of the smoker and mostly the chimney. Curiously, friction in a pipe depends on its length and diameter and the air velocity itself. Making calculations difficult. But you can make a few generalizations.

    As you double the length of the pipe the air velocity reduces by the square root of the length, or 0.7x. When you double the diameter, the velocity increases by the square root. or by a factor of 1.7x

    In a fireplace or smoker, you care less about the air velocity than the flow rate- e.g the volume of air per second exhausted. The flow rate “F” is the air velocity times the area of the pipe. So F is proportional to (D^5/L)^.5 , where D is the pipe diameter and L is the pipe length. Yikes. Not simply the volume.

    For example, if you start with a 3” diameter, 6 foot long chimney and compare to a 4” diameter, 3.4 foot long chimney (both have the same volume), the flow rate is actually 2.75x higher in the larger diameter chimney. Even though the volumes are identical.

    For a large diameter pipe (5” and above say), the chimney volume has no effect on the flow rate- the damper completely controls the flow rate. For a small diameter pipe, its diameter and air friction matters. Some people like to use a chimney with enough friction that it acts as a damper and self-limits the flow and combustion. Other prefer to fiddle with the damper (and firebox vent).
 
This shed some new light on chimney size and length

Gary 
 
Go with the 36",  you can always modify them later on if needed.

Gary
 
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