Hi all,
I’m new to the forum. Having once built a vertical smoker and accompanying Argentine-style brick grill, I’m trying it again but wanting to make the smoker an offset and thinking about whether it could double as a pizza oven. Here’s my progress so far. Ignore the right side that’s where the Argentine style grill will be and I know where I’m going there. But the left side is what I want help thinking through. The left most chamber is going to be the fire box. I’ll line the inside with fire brick. Then I originally planned to do a reverse offset and basically have a clay pipe take the smoke under the base of the smoker, release the smoke into a rectangle brick smoker on the right side when facing it, and have the exit chimney on the left side midway down to basically imitate the air flow of most commercially available metal offset reverse flow smokers. But then I got to thinking, what if the smoke leaves out the back of the fire box and travels over and up the back of the smoker and I make the smoker a dome pizza oven shape complete with the full insulation and everything else including having the smoke exit through the top via an air outlet close to the door like on most pizza ovens. Then when I want to use it as a pizza oven I could cover up the smoke inlet from the fire box with something and use it as a pizza oven with a fire in the oven as normal and when I want to smoke I uncover it and of course use the firebox for the fire. Is there anything thermodynamically wrong with that? Is it bad for a smoker to retain heat the way a pizza oven does? Would the extra insulation and done shape hurt the ability to go slow and low when smoking?
Here’s some diagrams (not proportional just to give the idea) and the photos of the actual in progress build. Thanks!
I’m new to the forum. Having once built a vertical smoker and accompanying Argentine-style brick grill, I’m trying it again but wanting to make the smoker an offset and thinking about whether it could double as a pizza oven. Here’s my progress so far. Ignore the right side that’s where the Argentine style grill will be and I know where I’m going there. But the left side is what I want help thinking through. The left most chamber is going to be the fire box. I’ll line the inside with fire brick. Then I originally planned to do a reverse offset and basically have a clay pipe take the smoke under the base of the smoker, release the smoke into a rectangle brick smoker on the right side when facing it, and have the exit chimney on the left side midway down to basically imitate the air flow of most commercially available metal offset reverse flow smokers. But then I got to thinking, what if the smoke leaves out the back of the fire box and travels over and up the back of the smoker and I make the smoker a dome pizza oven shape complete with the full insulation and everything else including having the smoke exit through the top via an air outlet close to the door like on most pizza ovens. Then when I want to use it as a pizza oven I could cover up the smoke inlet from the fire box with something and use it as a pizza oven with a fire in the oven as normal and when I want to smoke I uncover it and of course use the firebox for the fire. Is there anything thermodynamically wrong with that? Is it bad for a smoker to retain heat the way a pizza oven does? Would the extra insulation and done shape hurt the ability to go slow and low when smoking?
Here’s some diagrams (not proportional just to give the idea) and the photos of the actual in progress build. Thanks!
