Hey all,
I recently built an offset smoker out of a 55 gallon drum and a side fire box out of 1/8" steel. I have the chimmney down at grate level, i put in tuning plates about 4 inches below the grates, have a nice air inlet on my fire box that is a little lower than my charcoal grate, and i also had a baffle to push the heat down. I put these in right off the bat before any burns. I recently did a few practice burns and noticed i wasnt getting much above 175. I took out the deflector baffle and that brought the hot side up to about 200 and then i took a tuning plate out that was closest to the fire box and got it in the lower portion of my 220-250 target area. My cold side still wont go much above 175, its like i cant quite get the heat transfer right. I took all the tuning plates out because that just lowered my overall temp. Im not sure if anyone can help but some input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
I recently built an offset smoker out of a 55 gallon drum and a side fire box out of 1/8" steel. I have the chimmney down at grate level, i put in tuning plates about 4 inches below the grates, have a nice air inlet on my fire box that is a little lower than my charcoal grate, and i also had a baffle to push the heat down. I put these in right off the bat before any burns. I recently did a few practice burns and noticed i wasnt getting much above 175. I took out the deflector baffle and that brought the hot side up to about 200 and then i took a tuning plate out that was closest to the fire box and got it in the lower portion of my 220-250 target area. My cold side still wont go much above 175, its like i cant quite get the heat transfer right. I took all the tuning plates out because that just lowered my overall temp. Im not sure if anyone can help but some input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you