Converting to Natural gas

[joeyfine]

Hey All,

I just finished building a new home and I installed natural gas hookups to my grill and smoke outside. Is there any reason not to switch to natural gas for smoking? Do you guys have any recommendations for conversions kits for a masterbuilt gas smoker?

 

[kruizer]

Just that you properly connect with the appropriate regulator and hardware. Don't know about specific kits. I would call Masterbuilt customer service.

 

[dave schiller]

And don't try to run the smoker on NG with a propane burner. It won't work. Don't ask me how I know.

 

[daveomak]

Propane, because of it's density, uses a much LARGER orifice in the burner assembly.. Like Dave Schiller noted, they won't work on Nat. Gas...

 

[krj]

If you have the NG hookups there then there is no reason not to get the NG conversion kits for all of your equipment. I'd love to not have to worry about switching propane tanks, but that's not an option at my current location. Keep in mind though, that if you want to take your smoker to a new location for a comp or whatever, you'll need to find a NG tank to lug around with you.

 

[johnmeyer]

Most products have conversion kits available. Just search for your brand and model.

If you can't find a kit, you can usually find a machine shop that can fabricate a new orifice. There are some online calculators that will tell you what size opening you'll need. In some cases you may also need a regulator because of the pressure differences, but I can never remember which direction (LP-->NG or NG-->LP) it is needed, since I haven't done one of these.

I have a friend who had someone do the conversion for him, using a machined part.

I've had an NG grill since 1995, and putting in that gas line was the best thing I ever did. Cooking on the grill is precisely the same as cooking on my indoor cooktop: no setup; no worry about running out of gas; just turn on the burner and start cooking.

 

[Jonok]

At my last house I had a giant “California Kamado” that had a gas burner/starter which I converted to natural gas to avail myself of the existing plumbing for an old aluminum built-in gas grill. Wasn’t hard to find the orfice conversion numbers, and it worked great.