Airflow = even temps.

AlwaysSmokey said:

Here's the book. Lotta Brethren, myself included, think it's a great read.


Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto: Aaron Franklin, Jordan Mackay: 9781607747208: Amazon.com: Books


Regards,

Kevin

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Thanks, It due here day after tomorrow.

dport7 said:

Really nice set up you have going on. Yes, keep the lean to for your wood shed.
My lean to wood shed.

I ran my stick burner all day today, same way you do, I like to keep stack and intake wide open, and to cool it, if I have to, I'll close the intake, although, sometimes I'll open the door a touch to let it even out.

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Now that's one farkin' wood shed!

I bought /,downloaded the book to my iPhone. Great idea, except I am stuck reading it on my phone and can't pull it up on my PC.

AlwaysSmokey said:

So, one more update for this thread.

I have found that after a few hours of burning I can revert to my older method and close down my intake to a sliver and maintain my even temps. This cuts down on wood consumption big time. This is after a good coal bed is established.

I really don't know what to make of it. When I ran this pit this way from the onset, the temp from one side to the other would vary drastically. But starting with the airflow method and switching to the damper shut down style; My temps. remain dead nuts even.

Go figure.

On any given weekend the world of bbq can just flip all of your methods and leave you happy,..yet confused.

P.S.
There are still no tuning plates or damper from the fb to the cook chamber.

Regards,

Kevin

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Seems that two things are going on:

1. The smoker has come up to operating temperature and is acting like a flywheel: it is radiating its heat back inside to maintain temperature. If the mass of the smoker is large, this effect can last for hours.

2. The coal bed exhibits the same effect. Once the bed is large enough to generate sufficient heat ( by "heat" I mean BTUs, not temperature), The coals do not require nearly as much oxygen as fuel and don't throw off nasty smoke. But coals will continue to maintain temps for quite a while.

It takes quite a bit of energy to bring the food and smoker up to operating temps. Once there, only a fraction of the initial fuel is needed to offset the thermal losses of the oven.

Insulated verticals exhibit this effect best.