tried the new freezer smoker this weekend

[jkraft]

well i just tried my recent smoker build this weekend. DID NOT WORK WOTH A HOOT!!!!! back to the drawing board(pics in roll call) i need more heat! i have 1 2600w. element in the heat/smoke box below and now i think i am goin to have to add 2 more 100 watters in the cavity itself. i had about 30-35lbs of sticks in there and could not get to temp. it was terrible. me and a buddy of mine did 280lbs of sausage, summer sausage, sticks friday and went to smoke on sat to no avail. luckily my old neighbor had an actual smokehouse that can hold about 60-75 lbs at a time. but holy i thought that by using an old freezer would be great. any other suggestions would be cheap now i got to add about 110 more in elements/wiring... great!!

thanks for listening i needed to vent a little i'm not a very happy guy right now!!!

 

[graybeard]

you didn't think about a test run? Do you think that 200 more watts will get you going? Do you by chance have a 220 volt element running on 110?

beard

 

[mulepackin]

That was my question. Thats an awful lot of wattage for what little heat it sounds like you are generating. I can get 250 plus deg. temps with my 1500 watt element. Something is wrong. Post some pics of the heating element itself.

 

[dinkydau]

I don't have a problem getting to 230 degrees with just an old 1000 watt hot plate.
Don't have a clue what the problem might be.

dinkydau

 

[bbq bubba]

No pics, never happened.....

 

[jkraft]

i don't have any pics of the element. all it is is an 8" coil burner from the top of a stove. yes it is wired 240v i just don't understand why it isnt working...i would move the burner to the inside of the cavity but i dont want to have to open the door everytime i need to add chips either. here are some pics of the smoker.....


the silver box on the bottom is the smoke box and houses my element. i just recently changed the size of the flue going in to the cavity from a 5" to an 8" diameter to allow more heat to get into the cavity. it was cold outside when we were doin this but it still should have heated up to temp. i can get it up to temp just fine with NO meat in there but when fully loaded its a pain...heres a pic of my controls........

i was thinkin of adding 1 more element in the cavity just to boostup the temp when fully loaded with meat........any more suggestions????

 

[meat hunter]

What was the highest temp you got? How long did you have the sticks in there before you realized the temp was not where it should be?

 

[jkraft]

well it would hold around 140. then we enclosed the bottom and the temp rose a little but not much. it took like 6 or more hrs for the sticks to get done. not good! they turned out ok but dry.. they should only take 2 1/2 hours at 195deg. the second batch went better after i went and got a sheet of plywood and completely enclosed the bottom and i also raised my element so it was only about 5in. from the flue. i'm about ready to pull my hair out on this one......i don't get it. it shouldn't be this difficult!!

 

[smokeguy]

The more mass you have the more energy and time you will need to get up to the temp you want.

It's like an ice cube...you have a glass filled with them, pour in hot water, and you still have ice cubes. After a little bit you'll have cold water again. If you do this long enough or with more water quantity (energy heat in the case of the smoker), the ice in the glass will become the temperature of the hot water.

So, if you're hitting temps without anything in there, you've either got to add more heat like you're talking about with more elements (or you could try using "hot mass" like fire bricks and/or water preheated to help out), wait longer which may or may not be practical (meat over 140 in 4 hours is the guideline unless it's "special"), get more movement of the heat with a fan (movement helps the transfer of heat/cold and is why running water works so well to thaw something), or put less meat in there at any one time (add more as the temp gets to where you want it just like less ice in the glass will get hot quicker).

Just some thoughts on some things to try I suppose.

 

[pineywoods]

What kind and size exhaust do you have on it?

 

[meat hunter]

I agree with smokeguy. When loaded up, its gonna take some time. Just like when you come home from the grocery store and load the fridge up, the fridge kicks in as the cold temp are now being absorbed by the new product being introduced. Like he said, maybe add some bricks and get that thing up to temp before loading, just like you would when baking in your oven. You always preheat. Maybe you are doing that, if so I didnt see if you said that. Are there any gaps cracks or anything other than your dedicated chimeny that heat may be escaping from? From what I gathered, the element you have is more than enough. Do you have a draft on the box where the element is at? Your setup looks good, and Im sure its just a matter of "Tweaking it" a bit. But I would put something in there to absorb some heat and hold it like some firebrick.

 

[jkraft]

i have a 3" pipe out the top with a damper in it. i had i closed when doing this hoping to keep the heat in better. yes i am preheating it to about 190 before i put anything in it. i think i'm gonna have to bite the bullet and go to the store and get another element or 2. man that sucks...

 

[mulepackin]

Are you sure your thermostat is designed to handle 240V? I am also wondering if you are not just losing a lot of heat out of the box below the smoker, via conduction and convection, before it has a chance to make it into the smoker. Particularly if it was very cold and/or windy. I agree with your thoughts to not put your element into the smoker chamber so as to not lose heat when opening to add chips. I built mine with the main element inside, and a seperate smoke chamber just for that very reason. I can add chips for smoke and never lose heat from opening the smoker. Conversly, I can do cold smokes and not have to worry about heat from the smoke generation process adding too much heat to the smoker.