newbie question

[okrafan]

My brother and I are discussing building a RF smoker.  He has seen one somewhere, and I am having trouble figuring out if what he is talking about will work or not.  I have looked through the older posts and haven't seen one like it, but it might be here somewhere and I overlooked it.  

We have a 250 gallon propane tank.  He wants to basically take about 1/4 of the tank and make it the firebox by adding a divider.  Then cutting the opening between the firebox and smoking chamber towards the bottom of the divider, and adding a baffle in order to make it reverse flow.  The entire smoker and firebox will be contained within the 250 gallon tank.  

I don't know if what I just explained made any sense or not, but if anyone has this type of smoker or has any experience with this type of smoker could you give some advice and/or pictures for me to look at before we begin the build. Any information will be greatly appreciated.  

 

[bubbonehead]

To coin a phrase, that dog won't hunt. You must look at this in the simplest of terms, Heat rises. The only way use a quarter of your tank as the fire box and end up with a smoker that functions as intended is to cut it from the rest of the tank, divide it with a sheet of steel and drop it so that the top of your fire box is even with your dividing plate. See illustration.

I considered building mine this way during early planning. If you choose to go this route, use a little more than 25% of the tank for the firebox.

 

[okrafan]

That is what I was thinking, but he swears that he has seen one built that way and that it worked great.  I may just let him build that one on his on. 

 

[texas redneck]

Is he referring to something like this?

[=http://www.thesmokerking.com/images/mypit3.jpg][/]

Sorry for just a link, I couldn't get the picture in here.

 

[texas redneck]

The link didn't work either. It as at thesmokerking.com under his Build a Smoker tab

 

[alelover]

You mean this one?

 

[scrappynadds]

boy if that is it, it should be ........looks great.......

 

[texas redneck]

I don't know if it is one like he is referring to, but that's the image I was trying to put in.

 

[bubbonehead]

That's cool looking, but it's not a RF. It's a very nice offset smoker. A RF smoker would have the smoke stack on the same end as the firebox.

 

[diesel]

I had a side firebox setup before the RF I have now.  I would never go back.  That is just my opinion.  But the RF really cooks good.  I attached a picture of my finished product.  When I first started the build I was going w/ the side firebox design, that is why my build in under the side firebox forum but after doing more research I went with the RF and it was a really good choice.  Link to build: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/91142/250-gallon-propane-tank

Hope this is of some help.

 

[okrafan]

Alelover, I think that is similar to what he is talking about, just a RF instead.