Do you seal a smoker to keep in heat and smoke or keep oxygen just going through your vents?

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archi-nutt

Newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2017
19
10
Do you seal a smoker to keep in heat and smoke or keep oxygen just going through your vents?

I ask because my completely stock Dyno Glo Verticle smoker is tough to get under 290  with a regular amount of briquets in it.  It has thin metal and it was 30ish degrees both times.

At first I thought we were keeping smoke and heat in with the (future) sealant so I am wondering why the temps stay so high. It occured to me with a leaky door etc more oxygen that can't be controlled is getting in.

Am I thinking about this correctly?  I would hate to have to keep putting coals in every 30 minutes for these 12 hour cooks!
 
Air needs to be going through to keep a fire going. Smoke needs to go through to keep meat from getting bitter. Just my $0.02
 
Yep, and thats what the vent and chimney is doing. I am wondering about the air that is sneaking in at the joints
 
I leaky fire box door will cause high temps.   I leaky cc door wont.
 
Thanks C Farmer. That is interesting.  Makes sense I guess.  When I get time to get this thing sealed up I am very curious how much of a difference it makes.  I really enjoyed the first two smokes and the food was amazing.
 
Take both Joe's and Adam's answers to the bank, Arch:  Adam's comment has dual meaning.  While leaky FB door causes high temps and CC doesn't, read between the lines.  Leaky CC causes heat loss, thus slow cook and more fuel consumption.  Keep all door/joints well sealed, and use your intake vents as intended--exhaust vent(s) should be wide open.  Another set of $0.02.
 
Thanks everyone.  Ordered stuff for both fronts.

It was just counterintuitive for a minute if I couldn't keep the heat down to tighten things up, then the combustible air idea hit me.
 
Sealed it up tonight. Felty nomex stuff around the smoke box last night (should have ordered wider but it should still work -1/4 wide versus 1/2" space) and hi temp at cracks and the firebox tonight. Should be cured for a Saturday cook. Very curious to see the difference. Hope I get time to smoke something.
 
I have not used a Dyna-Glo but have seen one in action on YouTube. A couple of comments that may help..

As with all smokers, until you get used to its operation you should run it with the top vent fully open. It is important to keep the air and smoke moving through the smoker.

The Firebox looks to be very large and if you fill it with lit coals it will get the smoker way too hot. Are you using the the Minion method to control the burn? This should allow you to control the temperature quite low just by restricting the bottom air vent.


Here is a screenshot I grabbed from one of the YouTube videos showing the Dyna-Glo firebox set up for Minion. A few lit coals are placed in the hole at the bottom right and the fire allowed to slowly spread through the firegox throughout the duration of the cook.

Bring the smoker up to temperature slowly. As the temperature increases start to shut down the bottom air vent when it is about 3/4 up to temperature. As the smoker gets closer to temperature continue to progressively shut down the bottom vent until an equilibrium is reached. Do not let the temperature overshoot as it is much harder to bring it back down after it has got too high.

Are you getting a lot of smoke coming out of the door seals? If not you may gain little value in using the sealer. I suspect that your problem was that you had too much fire in the firebox to begin with and had not shut the bottom vent down early enough.

Keep us updated.
 
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Thanks...that is really helpful. I put a picture of my minion method after it had been going for a while. That is a brick in the middle to make a path. Tomorrow i may try the method you suggest. I did NOT choke the air down as it rose (didn't know too...so thanks) and yes it got very hot and was hard to get down afterward without really limiting to very few briquettes.

I will try these tomorrow. Thanks!
 
Nutt, morning....  One additional thing that may help...   I didn't notice an air inlet on the smoker body...   Tweaking the air inlet on the Fire Box will control the heat..  An air inlet on the smoker body will allow you to help control the heat, lowering it, if the FB gets too warm...  also, when you have the fire choked down, it will allow you to add air flow to the smoker body for clean tasting smoke...   similar to the upper air inlet on a RF smoker...  You could add an upper air inlet on your FB directly across from the FB/CC opening IF you thought it would not add air to the fire and cause it to heat up again..  

An air tight smoker is a good thing...  allows for total operator control...
 
The only inlet in the smoke chamber is the chimney. Are you saying add another on the side of the smoke chamber or the firebox? I don't want to misunderstand the abbreviations. FB - fire box, CC - cooking chamber? RF - im not sure.

Newbie here
 
RF is Reverse flow smoker....  

An upper air inlet to the FB is added...  It doesn't add air to the fire and cause more heat...  It adds air to the upper FB to aid in "somewhat complete combustion" of the tars and move heat from the FB to the cook chamber.. and can cool the CC also if enough is added...   It's an additional control device to get clean smoke and regulate temps....  It also reduces the "suck" created from the chimney effect of the smoker on the lower air inlet which lowers the heating effect of that inlet...

What some have found, the FB gets too hot and there's not much you can do..  an additional "upper air inlet" will help to cool the FB, reducing fuel usage and control the heat in the CC... 

If you think you can install an upper air inlet on the FB...  if it's high enough to not add air to the fire, I would suggest adding one across from the FB/CC opening... 

Below is a picture of the placement of both FB air inlets...  the upper is far enough away from the fire it does not add air to the fire...   They don't have to be fancy...  an 1 1/2" hole with a slide or swivel or something to adjust the hole size..    You could start with a 1" hole and check the results...   it probably would not ever need to be adjusted and would be beneficial to your smoker...  Smoked meats need good air flow..  

If you can adjust the lower air flow inlet to get the coals to "simmer" so the smoker doesn't get too hot, your smoker may not have enough air flow for the meat...  the upper air inlet will allow for the necessary air flow for good clean smoke....

If you the single 1" upper air inlet and it works "OK" then you could add one more 1" upper air inlet and check the quality of the meat after smoking..

I'm of the opinion, you can't have too much air flow in a smoker..  all you need to do is up the heat to get the temperature where you want it... then all is good....   I have 3 each 1" air holes supplying my MES 30...    Your smoker could probably use the same...  2 lower to keep air to the pellets... the upper to move the smoke and provide that extra oxygen for "complete" combustion in removing creosote and tars as much as possible..


A FB from a RF smoker....  If you can see it, the upper air inlets do not add to the fire...

 
To be honest, I would not start drilling additional holes in your new smoker until you have tried the simple things first and they have not worked. Surgery should always be a last resort. I have been checking the online customer reviews for this unit and I am not seeing anything that suggests that poor temperature control is a design flaw on this model.
 
Super interesting. I will try the holes after a few more cooks. I don't want to change too many things at once. In this smoke what is new is a sealed door in both cc and fun and sealant at the connection. I also swapped out a pan of water for a pan of sand right above the fire box hole.

I also caught it at the the 3/4 heat point and moved the intake to 1/4. I also built the heat up slow.

That is probably too much in one smoke but it does seem to be acting better.

Today is a salmon and potatoes run (I don't have all day - just half). Tomorrow is a pork butt - my third one.

This forum is amazing

I didn't use the brick this time. Do y'all think that helps?
 
The brick will only take up charcoal space and reduce the potential cook time. You should be able to control the burn rate simply by adjusting the bottom air vent in this kind of smoker. Looking forward to seeing how you get on tomorrow 
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I don't think so, Wade--that fire brick will hold the heat just fine, and I get the maze effect he's created. I don't think cook time will be affected: instead, it will likely will lessen his fuel consumption.
 
The first thing I did after mine arrived(before assembly) was put a bright light in the fire box turned the room lights off and found all my leaks. Mainly where the top is welded to the sides. Between welds at least .003-5 gap down one side and spotty on the others. Also with the air inlet plate closed alot of light around rolled punches on plate. I laminated a plate onto factory inlet plate with slightly smaller ovals to get 100% closer. In the cook chamber some open gaps where top is mated to body. Light will show you every gap when it shines thru. Hope it helps.
 
When you are burning fuel and have reached the equilibrium point (where the heat produced by the coals matches the heat lost through the flue and walls of the smoker) you will be burning fuel at the same rate regardless of the amount of fuel that you have. The brick takes up space that would have been available for additional fuel - hence the reduction in overall cook time. I can see why the brick is there to create the maze effect but the fuel also has to heat that up too to begin with before it can later give heat back out. The brick will not be able to create heat and therefore the coals will have to have already created that heat too.

Once the smoker has reached equilibrium then (assuming normal external temperature conditions) then the length of the potential cook is limited only by the availability of the fuel and the air. More fuel = longer cook time.
 
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Wimpy, I did the flash light thing earlier in the week. I doubt I got everything but got the big gaps you describe. This thing is acting so much better today

On the brick, it seems like with less coals I had to keep putting more in more often. I am not seeing spikes. But now this thing is sealed better and I have a pan full of sand instead of water.
 
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