Greetings Forum Folks!
My winter’s opus is complete! I started this 7 years ago by cutting the bottom off a couple of tanks…then it sat in the corner of the garage, moved once, had a kid, and other priorities. This last fall I decided to knock the dust off the old project and bring it to the finish line.
Some of the pictures show process of build including a couple of finished pics painted black (stove paint at 18$ a can and used 4 of ‘em!!!). I wasn’t sure how to “wheel” it as it had gotten pretty heavy. Two adults will strain to pick it up. So picked up a Harbor Freight garden cart (rated 1000 lbs) and now it’s mobile. There’s a pick point welded near the stack that allows me to lift it off the cart and still have a garden cart. Works great!
The only issue:
I’ve run it 5 or 6 times now and am having trouble maintaining 225*F. In fact, it’s hard to get over 200 at all. It really likes 170-185 and then I finish it in the oven. Let me explain a build compromise and kindly ask for adviceJ.
The CC is a water pressure tank in a past life. I had planned to take the inverted domed end and simply flip and weld it on as the end cap. It didn’t work as planned. By this time, I had already welded the RF plate into position. So I cut a flat steel section and capped the end with that. In doing so, I lost some cubic inches of air flow between the RF plate and the CC (flat vs dome).
Here are my numbers (all square inches)
FB air in: 9.77 Recommended: 10.07
FB to CC: 31 Recommended: 26.86
RF plate gap in CC: 28.5 Recommended: slightly larger than FB-CC (31)
I wonder if the low temperature issue is due to not getting enough heat/smoke volume around the RF plate, over the food, and up the stack. Feldon’s guide says to make the RF-CC gap slightly larger than the FB-CC hole. I’ve also got the telltail “puffing” of smoke out of the FB intake. It’s not constant, but I do see some smoke sneaking out the FB door.
So as you can see, my RF plate gap in CC is not “slightly larger” than FB to CC as Feldon's BBQ Calculator suggests. In fact it’s only about 3” smaller than recommended (again due to not using the domed end of the tank and resorting to a flat section). I also read somewhere that the RF plate opening should be 1.5x the FB-CC opening. If that’s the case, I need another 5.7 (?).
One of the pictures has been doodled on to a show potential solution…cutting extra air flow holes in RF plate. Seems like a junky fix but easy and very doable. The other idea would be to take a section of half round pipe (6”?), cap the half-moon ends, cut a hole on the end of the CC plate and weld on the needed cubic volume. Seems like a labor intensive fix and ruins my paint job J.
The first fix would be easy to do with a cutting torch, doesn’t involve major modification. I could just not put food over that point so it doesn’t drip down into the bowels of the CC. All other grease would still gravitationally find its way to the drain.
Sooo….
Thoughts on how to get temperature higher and/or increase air flow?
Thank forum folks! I’ve learned so much through observing other conversations and cherry picking ideas as I built my RF smoker!
Cheers.
My winter’s opus is complete! I started this 7 years ago by cutting the bottom off a couple of tanks…then it sat in the corner of the garage, moved once, had a kid, and other priorities. This last fall I decided to knock the dust off the old project and bring it to the finish line.
Some of the pictures show process of build including a couple of finished pics painted black (stove paint at 18$ a can and used 4 of ‘em!!!). I wasn’t sure how to “wheel” it as it had gotten pretty heavy. Two adults will strain to pick it up. So picked up a Harbor Freight garden cart (rated 1000 lbs) and now it’s mobile. There’s a pick point welded near the stack that allows me to lift it off the cart and still have a garden cart. Works great!
The only issue:
I’ve run it 5 or 6 times now and am having trouble maintaining 225*F. In fact, it’s hard to get over 200 at all. It really likes 170-185 and then I finish it in the oven. Let me explain a build compromise and kindly ask for adviceJ.
The CC is a water pressure tank in a past life. I had planned to take the inverted domed end and simply flip and weld it on as the end cap. It didn’t work as planned. By this time, I had already welded the RF plate into position. So I cut a flat steel section and capped the end with that. In doing so, I lost some cubic inches of air flow between the RF plate and the CC (flat vs dome).
Here are my numbers (all square inches)
FB air in: 9.77 Recommended: 10.07
FB to CC: 31 Recommended: 26.86
RF plate gap in CC: 28.5 Recommended: slightly larger than FB-CC (31)
I wonder if the low temperature issue is due to not getting enough heat/smoke volume around the RF plate, over the food, and up the stack. Feldon’s guide says to make the RF-CC gap slightly larger than the FB-CC hole. I’ve also got the telltail “puffing” of smoke out of the FB intake. It’s not constant, but I do see some smoke sneaking out the FB door.
So as you can see, my RF plate gap in CC is not “slightly larger” than FB to CC as Feldon's BBQ Calculator suggests. In fact it’s only about 3” smaller than recommended (again due to not using the domed end of the tank and resorting to a flat section). I also read somewhere that the RF plate opening should be 1.5x the FB-CC opening. If that’s the case, I need another 5.7 (?).
One of the pictures has been doodled on to a show potential solution…cutting extra air flow holes in RF plate. Seems like a junky fix but easy and very doable. The other idea would be to take a section of half round pipe (6”?), cap the half-moon ends, cut a hole on the end of the CC plate and weld on the needed cubic volume. Seems like a labor intensive fix and ruins my paint job J.
The first fix would be easy to do with a cutting torch, doesn’t involve major modification. I could just not put food over that point so it doesn’t drip down into the bowels of the CC. All other grease would still gravitationally find its way to the drain.
Sooo….
Thoughts on how to get temperature higher and/or increase air flow?
Thank forum folks! I’ve learned so much through observing other conversations and cherry picking ideas as I built my RF smoker!
Cheers.
