Old Country Bravos question

[groovenreuven]

Does it need to be modified? Dealer says no way but Jeremy Yoder (and others) say it’s a must. Your thoughts?

 

[Smokin Okie]

Its a Brazos. I owned one. And its not a simple answer but I did not modify mine and I cooked a lot of good barbecue on that smoker.

It comes down to how much value do you place on air flow over your meats ?

Its a low air flow cooker. If you adjust the damper on the firebox to halfway open, and you get enough air into the firebox to burn a clean fire, then the Brazos works just fine.

But if you want to open it up and increase the air flow, then you need to make some mods, like taking out the baffle.

With the baffle in, its a bottom up smoker. You want heat/air to rise immediately after it goes under the baffle. Then get pulled across the meats by the stack at grate level.

If you take the baffle out, it becomes a top down cooker, with heat/air rising immediately when it enters the cook chamber, then getting pulled across the meats.

Just me, but if I took the baffle out, I would want to have a welder build a collector on the stack end . If you open up one end of an offset, ya need to open up the other end also.

But the simple answer is if you cut the air flow down, the Brazos is a fine cooker and it will make you a lot of good barbecue.

 

[groovenreuven]

Thank you for the reply. This is exactly what I was looking for. It’s hard to find good information on this.

 

[Smokin Okie]

I tried a stack extension on my Brazos. Added 2 foot of height. It did pull more air into the smoker. But the heat/air could not exit fast enough and heat would build on the stack end of the cook chamber.

The stack on the Brazos is 6" diameter. But the actual port between the cook chamber and the stack is 4.5". Some people have enlarged the port. I figured Old Country had a reason for that and I suspected it was to provide good support for the stack weld. I left it alone.

I had TelTru's on both ends. By adjusting the damper on the firebox, I could get heat balanced on both ends. The extension was easy to take on and off. I would put the stack extension on and the stack end would heat up. Take it off and it regained balance. If it had a collector/stack, the air could exit as fast as it entered.

So my final conclusion ....... the reason for the stack extension is to increase the draw through the smoker, but if I have to cut the air flow down at the firebox to keep heat from building on the stack end, then I've gained nothing.

The baffle is fairly large. It does restrict air flow. It creates a very small exchange between firebox and cook chamber. I concluded it created a venturi effect, air would speed up as it went under the baffle. Then opening up the air intake to the firebox, would cause the heat to shoot further into the cook chamber. That's why the air intake had to be cut down.

Early on with the smoker, I tried opening up the air intake and I got burned bottoms on meats on the stack end of the cooking grate. Even though my cook temps were not over 300*.

What the baffle does do is protect meats on the firebox end of the cooking grate, from direct heat from the fire. So it makes that end usable. Cutting out the baffle is going to make about 1/3 of the firebox end of the grate , unusable.

Air flow is about convection. Kitchen convection ovens cook faster than conventional ovens because they move air around the meats or whatever is cooking. There's no doubt that convection is a good thing. But how much convection is another issue.

 

[groovenreuven]

I tried a stack extension on my Brazos. Added 2 foot of height. It did pull more air into the smoker. But the heat/air could not exit fast enough and heat would build on the stack end of the cook chamber.

The stack on the Brazos is 6" diameter. But the actual port between the cook chamber and the stack is 4.5". Some people have enlarged the port. I figured Old Country had a reason for that and I suspected it was to provide good support for the stack weld. I left it alone.

I had TelTru's on both ends. By adjusting the damper on the firebox, I could get heat balanced on both ends. The extension was easy to take on and off. I would put the stack extension on and the stack end would heat up. Take it off and it regained balance. If it had a collector/stack, the air could exit as fast as it entered.

So my final conclusion ....... the reason for the stack extension is to increase the draw through the smoker, but if I have to cut the air flow down at the firebox to keep heat from building on the stack end, then I've gained nothing.

The baffle is fairly large. It does restrict air flow. It creates a very small exchange between firebox and cook chamber. I concluded it created a venturi effect, air would speed up as it went under the baffle. Then opening up the air intake to the firebox, would cause the heat to shoot further into the cook chamber. That's why the air intake had to be cut down.

Early on with the smoker, I tried opening up the air intake and I got burned bottoms on meats on the stack end of the cooking grate. Even though my cook temps were not over 300*.

What the baffle does do is protect meats on the firebox end of the cooking grate, from direct heat from the fire. So it makes that end usable. Cutting out the baffle is going to make about 1/3 of the firebox end of the grate , unusable.

Air flow is about convection. Kitchen convection ovens cook faster than conventional ovens because they move air around the meats or whatever is cooking. There's no doubt that convection is a good thing. But how much convection is another issue.

Thank you. This is a great explanation.