Old Country Gravity Fed

[anthonyc2488]

I purchased an Old Country Gravity Fed smoker a year or so ago and overall design I really enjoy. However, I've noticed what I consider an issue and am hoping maybe someone else has experienced it or has some insight. Seems to me that it does not get enough air flow through the fire box and out the stack. With the ball valve completely open the temp comes up extremely slow. And have actually had it smother itself out. For me to get the temp to come up at any kind of reasonable speed I have to leave the fire box door cracked, the further its open the faster it comes up to temp but then I i have little control at maintaining temp.

I did purchase and have been using a billows fan which does allow me to use the unit but it's kind of getting old at having to drag it out and run wires every time I want to cook. I'm tempted to cut a hole in the fire box door and have a standard twist style baffle installed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[JIMSMOKES]

Following cause I'm wantin this grill

 

[mike243]

A taller stack might make it draft better, you could slide a extension over it to try without any major work. I would add 2' and test drive it. I wanted a gravity fed pretty bad until charcoal prices jumped up and haven't came back down, kinda cooled my wants lol

 

[Smokin Okie]

I came very close to buying an OCGF. But it was the air flow issue that bothered me. I ended up spending a lot more money than I wanted to on an Assassin 17.

IMO, I thought the problem was the exchange between the firebox and the cook chamber. They force hot air down, making it take two 90* angles to reach the cook chamber. And the welds on the baffle are terrible, or at least the one I saw in Academy.

Other GF's I looked at on the internet, were more open. My Assassin has a straight shot from coal grate into the cook chamber. The charcoal chute is offset so the ash bin is lower than the bottom of the cook chamber. Other's I saw like the Limo Jr, had a 45* baffle.

I'll post some pics. With a crude drawing of what I thought would fix the OCGF.

Air flow through the OCGF and the welds on the baffle that I saw.

 

[Smokin Okie]

Here's how Southern Q's Limo Jr is designed and how I thought a welder could do something similar to the OCGF.

The port between firebox/cook chamber is similar to OCGF in the Limo Jr, in how high it is from the bottom of the cook chamber.

I thought a welder could do similar to the OCGF with the only loss being a bit of space on the lower cooking grate, which really, I doubt the lower grate is used that much. I know on my Assassin its really too hot, it gets a lot of radiant heat from the deflector.

On my pic , the yellow is the loss of grate space. The blue lines is an approximation of Limo Jr's baffle, and the red lines is what I would have a welder build.

 

[Smokin Okie]

Interesting about the OCGF, I ran across this five year old video yesterday. Old Country had sent this guy a prototype of their OCGF. First thing I noticed was it was larger than the one they make now. And from what I can see in that vid, the port between firebox and cook chamber was a straight shot, there's no baffle there.

Evidently , in making it smaller, they had to put a baffle on that port. Which, IMO, changed the air flow in the cooker.

 

[Smokin Okie]

Here's what one fella did with his OCGF. And its really not a reach. Aaron Franklin does something similar to a Big Green Egg to improve the air flow.

 

[Smokin Okie]

I found this yesterday. This is the Stumps Smokers firebox to cook chamber design. I don't know what Old Country was thinking with the double 90* turns.

Something similar to this could be done with the OCGF. IDK how the OCGF handles grease, so maybe not.

I've set this vid to start at the pic of the port.

 

[anthonyc2488]

I've been seriously looking at making a stack extension and I was looking at the very least even if I don't take out the bottom grate cutting the baffle off just below the bottom grate.

 

[Smokin Okie]

My Assassin 17 . It has a 2 X 4 tubing connecting the firebox with cook chamber, with a small thick deflector over the top, similar to Stumps.

Then it has what Assassin calls a grease collector, that also serves as a deflector, with a grease drain pipe running through the bottom.

 

[Smokin Okie]

I've been seriously looking at making a stack extension and I was looking at the very least even if I don't take out the bottom grate cutting the baffle off just below the bottom grate.

In Franklin's latest book, he goes into detail about how he improved the air flow through the BGE

 

[anthonyc2488]

So I cut the original baffle off just below the bottom grate slide. So far my first test run had it coming up to temp much quicker. 30 mins to get to 300.

 

[Smokin Okie]

Well, that baffle or whatever ya wanna call it, was what I thought to be the problem with air flow in that cooker.

My concern would be how that impacts the grease management. If ya get open flame in the cook chamber and there's grease near, well, ya got a grease fire.

But then , I don't know that cooker, but it was a concern I had. That was why I was gonna model the Southern Q Limo Jr .

Also, if ya cook with hotel pans on the bottom grate to deal with the grease, then that's not an issue.

 

[DJ Killmore]

So I cut the original baffle off just below the bottom grate slide. So far my first test run had it coming up to temp much quicker. 30 mins to get to 300.

Well, that's not good. You just removed the deflector that allows the heat to enter the chamber and fill up from left of the smoker and created a nice hot spot on the right side. That bottom grate would most likely be unusable now.

Any follow-up to how that worked out for you, besides 'reaching temp' quicker? Which probably isn't a true temp of the entire cook chamber. I would test it with either multiple thermometers or an IR thermometer.

Curious your results though

 

[John Myers]

I came very close to buying an OCGF. But it was the air flow issue that bothered me. I ended up spending a lot more money than I wanted to on an Assassin 17.

IMO, I thought the problem was the exchange between the firebox and the cook chamber. They force hot air down, making it take two 90* angles to reach the cook chamber. And the welds on the baffle are terrible, or at least the one I saw in Academy.

Other GF's I looked at on the internet, were more open. My Assassin has a straight shot from coal grate into the cook chamber. The charcoal chute is offset so the ash bin is lower than the bottom of the cook chamber. Other's I saw like the Limo Jr, had a 45* baffle.

I'll post some pics. With a crude drawing of what I thought would fix the OCGF.

Air flow through the OCGF and the welds on the baffle that I saw.View attachment 676693

View attachment 676691
View attachment 676692

So I have been using this for a few years now. For the most part it works really great. This picture where you have the red line is my issue. There is a little grate in that welded area where the air flow comes through. What I have found is that eventually gets clogged up with ash and soot and blocks the air flow. Found that out in the middle of smoking some meat. I had to putl the grate that holds the charcoal in so I can remove all of the charcoal, stick a bbq fork up in there to try to clean out the pass through grate to the chamber, reload the charcoal (fortunately, most of it was still hot), and I was good to go again. I have NOT found an easy way to clean this part of the smoker out. Any suggestions would be great.

 

[Smokin Okie]

So I have been using this for a few years now. For the most part it works really great. This picture where you have the red line is my issue. There is a little grate in that welded area where the air flow comes through. What I have found is that eventually gets clogged up with ash and soot and blocks the air flow. Found that out in the middle of smoking some meat. I had to putl the grate that holds the charcoal in so I can remove all of the charcoal, stick a bbq fork up in there to try to clean out the pass through grate to the chamber, reload the charcoal (fortunately, most of it was still hot), and I was good to go again. I have NOT found an easy way to clean this part of the smoker out. Any suggestions would be great.

Some Assasin owners have had that same problem. That's why its important to clean that area after every smoke. I use my Shop Vac, but I can see how that would be a problem on OCGF. And I'm guessing, the charcoal hopper would have to be emptied ?

My Assassin doesn't have strong air flow and I've arrived at the conclusion that I would not want strong air flow. Too much, and the air could carry ash up into the cook chamber.

 

[ecoterragaia]

I created an account just so I could post here since this thread is pretty high on search results when searching air flow issues with Old Country Gravity Fed. If you're like me and refuse to use a fan for this smoker, the trick to getting it up to temp in about 30 minutes and producing no smoke or clean smoke is to place your charcoal starter chimney in the cook chamber so that it will heat soak before putting charcoal in the chute/firebox.

My method is start the chimney outside, let it burn for about ten minutes, then place on a foil pan in the bottom of the smoker. No racks should be inside. Close the cook chamber door, open the firebox door, and let the cook chamber come up to about 300° (about 10 minutes). Then quickly open the cook chamber door, take the chimney out, close the door, and dump the charcoal into chute. The cook chamber will come down to about 225° during this process. Add more charcoal on top of the hot coals in the chute and adjust the intake according to your target temp.

That's about it. The whole reason people were experiencing low airflow issues and dirty smoke is because of the lack of draw. By preheating the cook chamber, the hot air flows out of the smoke stack and immediately begins pulling air through the system, keeping the charcoal in the firebox well oxygenated.

I hope this helps. It took me several months and a lot of frustration to figure this out.