Question regarding fire box

[jnha]

I am very NEW to this smoking thing.

I have read numerous posts about the firebox being approx 100-110% differential.  I have been doing some looking and the Yoder Wichita is approx 155% differential.   Could someone explain to me how this works?  

 

[daveomak]

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=yoder+wichita+smoker

When building a smoker, you need a large fire box for heat control...  You need to build a fire much larger than is required for the exact temp you are looking for or you will be continually adding wood to control the temperature...  A larger fire allows for heat control with the air inlet adjusters allowing for longer cooking times without adding wood.... 

With upper air inlets and a large fire box, secondary burn of creosote etc. and air movement into the Cooking chamber is also achieved without adding air to the fire and increasing it's burn rate....

As a perfect example, the UDS uses up to or more, 20#'s of charcoal briquettes...   Controlling the air inlet to a trickle, allows for an UDS temperature of say 225 deg. F for up to 20 hours without adding any additional charcoal....   Same theory for a wood fired smoker...

Periodic additions of flavor wood to the firebox are necessary for smoke flavor if you so desire...

Also, smoke does not have to be visible to get smoke flavor to the final product...

Smoking meats is a science.  There are not many "wrong" ways... each person develops his/her technique to achieve results they prefer...