My Dyna-Glo Smoker

[NewBuilder]

I tried out my new Dyna-Glo smoker. I added my smoke generator from my last project. The registered temperature was 40 deg high and was very inconstant. I had to finish the ribs in the oven but they were still good. The smoke generator worked great. I got it fairly cheap and I'm prepared to mod it if needed.

 

[normanaj]

The temp swings are expected with that particular smoker. But with that crazy high exhaust stack and your smoke "generator" being so much higher than the smoker itself the only thing that comes to mind is some acrid over smoked tasting food.

What I would suggest is get your smoker off the ground,eliminate the kettle and use the mailbox mod for smoke generation and reduce that stack to just above the height of the top of your smoker.

 

[NewBuilder]

Thanks for the advice. I did quite a few experiments using my old unit before settling on this design. I like my food very lightly smoked and never could dial in the AMNTS (I used the kettle grill as my mailbox).

I have a small active fire in the kettle grill and allow plenty of air movement through the smoker. The smoke is very thin and blue.

 

[NewBuilder]

I rewired the element and limit switch to bypass the onboard controls and plugged the smoker into my controller. The temperature was rock steady. I hadn't figured out where to mount the thermocouples, so I laid one at the meat level, 250, +/- 1 deg, and the top one was 213 +/- 3 deg. I didn't check out the corner temps yet.

I don't think I would have attempted stuff like this if I hadn't found this site. I have learned some neat things.

 

[bill1]

setup looks good to me. Moving smoke is the opposite of siphoning water. With water it doesn't matter if you make the water move uphill part of the way...as long as it empties out the hose lower than where the water is sucking from you'll be fine. Same with smoke...doesn't hurt that you're making the smoke go downhill after it leaves the Weber kettle. As long as its only exit is up that high exhaust you're in business. And that arrangement is pretty good at getting creosote and other particulates to settle out in the hose instead of your food. The reason you've having good luck creating blue smoke is that only the very smallest of particulates (those that scatter the shortest blue wavelengths of light) are making their way to your DynaGlo cabinet and out your stack.

And it's nice having the Weber handy and relatively unmolested for it to handle other grilling jobs. And those flexible aluminum ducts aren't too expensive to replace when they get gunked up. I like it.