Height from RF plate to cooking grill

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andres

Newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2015
20
12
Hello!!

As I posted on my other thread I started a new project with a 120 gallon smoker. I thought about making it a reverse flow since my first build was reverse and had great results with cooking temps. Now instead of a square FB I am making it with another 24" tank, so the height of the FB to CC opening is higher than a square box. What I am worried about is that the aprox height from the RF plate to the actual food would be around 3", Im worried this might burn the food on the lower grate. What do you guys think? I still havent worked on fixing the RF plates or opening the stack so I could still back down and make it a normal offset smoker without the reverse flow. If you could give me any insights on this 3" height or thoughs, you would greatly help me choose, offset or reverse.
Thanks!!!





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If you want more clearance to the RF plate, modify your FB...
Here's how ahumadora does it with his builds...
Make the FB a flat top...
The elevate the FB to get a larger FB/CC opening.. and that allows for more
room to the RF plate..
He mentioned to me he had to eliminate the upper air inlet BECAUSE it confused
his customers... He lives in Argentina... BTW, on his smokers, he swears by the upper air inlet for fire control and reduced fuel consumption...


ahumadora  flat top FB.jpg

Ahumadora's build.jpg

Smoker exh and int 3 Ahumadora.jpg
 
If you want more clearance to the RF plate, modify your FB...
Here's how ahumadora does it with his builds...
Make the FB a flat top...
The elevate the FB to get a larger FB/CC opening.. and that allows for more
room to the RF plate..
He mentioned to me he had to eliminate the upper air inlet BECAUSE it confused
his customers... He lives in Argentina... BTW, on his smokers, he swears by the upper air inlet for fire control and reduced fuel consumption...


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Thanks Dave for your insight, its a good idea. What would you think would be a minimum height for the Food Grate-RF Plate height? Maybe 5 to 6 inches?
 
With proper temp control, using the upper air inlet, you can control the FB temp to be close to the CC temp and a super hot RF plate won't happen....
It's folks that choose to run the RF temp, only using the lower air inlet, that overheats the FB and get a hot spot on the RF plate and burn/consume, more fuel than required to run a decent temp... as long as you follow the recommendation in the build tutorial...
That being said, it also depends on the thickness of the RF plate.. If you make it 3", and it's too hot, you can lay a 1/4" plate on top of the RF plate to dissipate excess heat at the hot spot... ALSO, adding another plate, you can space the plate and make an air gap, using bolts w/nuts to make the air gap or welding rods with the flux removed.... An infra red non contact therm will give you reasonable numbers to get the RF plate temp..
Sooooooo, there are ways around stuff not working correctly... Original construction can always be adjusted to work satisfactory.....
Build it for comfort... 1 or 2 racks... Turkeys and ribs... Racks removable and stackable with legs...
Just remember... it's a smoker and not a BBQ... If you want high heat, use the BBQ... If you want set it and forget it, add some smoke and have the oven preheated to put the meat in to finish... That saves on wood also... or anything in between....
 
I have built some with little as 3” of clearance on the fb side in order to get the fb/cc opening large enough and still obtain enough rf fall to drain the grease. I typically use minimum of 3/16“ but prefer 1/4“ plate. The heavier plate acts as a heat sink helping to even out cc temps when temp swings occur in the fb...but it is not a singular solution. As Dave indicated, proper airflow is key to smoothing out the temp spread. Firebox air inlet placement is critical on the front side, but it works best with a well designed plenum scooping air on the exhaust side. If the airflow is balanced, the temps should be fairly well balanced too.
 
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