adding propane to a large smoker

[sizzle&smoke]

Hello I am new to this forum. I have built a few smokers of various sizes and concepts. How ever I have come upon a thought of using a propane forced air Torpedo heater to fire up a large smoker built from a propane tank. My concept is based on reverse flow with the addition of a smoke generator. Has anyone else considered this as an alternative to using loads of wood for the fuel.

 

[Magic Meat]

Hello I am new to this forum. I have built a few smokers of various sizes and concepts. How ever I have come upon a thought of using a propane forced air Torpedo heater to fire up a large smoker built from a propane tank. My concept is based on reverse flow with the addition of a smoke generator. Has anyone else considered this as an alternative to using loads of wood for the fuel.

Hi, It sounded intriguing to me at first, but after thinking about it. What you would end up with is a gigantic food dehydrator. I am fairly certain using a torpedo heater is going to move way too much air into it and through the cooker. Those things move some serious cfm through em, even the small ones. They also have all kinds of safety thermo switches built into them too, so if you were to choke the stack down with it running I know for certain it would start throwing codes and shut down. You would need a rather large stack to keep it from shutting down, and if you attempted bypass the thermo fault switches you would end up cooking the heater, burnt paint and cooked fan motor and wiring.
IMHO if you want to go propane you would be much better off just building a nice black iron pipe gas log in it and build some chip troughs above the burners for your smoke. There is much info around on building black iron pipe burners, pipe size vs length vs hole size and spacing, venturi etc.
You might be on to something though making 200 lbs of jerky at a time !! lol

 

[pops6927]

Or, just buy a propane heater at Northern Tool like I did - powered my 3'x3' x6' smokehouse like a champ!

 

[Magic Meat]

Or, just buy a propane heater at Northern Tool like I did - powered my 3'x3' x6' smokehouse like a champ!
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That would work much better ! Going naturally aspirated is where it's at. Unless it's a precise controlled fan like on a pellet burner unit. On the other hand, a fan blown torpedo heater would most likely produce full slab brisket jerky lol.

 

[SmokinAl]

My thinking is to not mess with a stick burner, they put out the best flavor And adding propane & forced air with a smoke generator will kill the flavor of a real wood fired smoker. But that’s just my humble opinion!
Al