Firebox to cook chamber opening question

[Misterwaterfallin]

On every calculator and picture that I can find, if has the opening from the firebox to the cook chamber on the back of the firebox, as seen in the picture below. I am making a smoker out of a tank, and the firebox will actually sit inset as I had to notch the rounded bottom of the tank to marry the firebox to the tank. I’m thinking of cutting the opening between the two on top of the firebox so the smoke and heat is forced vertically, not horizontally. My hope is that this would create a small hot spot.

Is there any reason why I shouldn’t do this?

 

[Nuco59]

Not a builder, but I do "tinker". I wonder how far you'd have to inset the firebox into the smoker to accommodate the radius of your opening. There might be question of how well it would draft and how the hot air would travel thru the cook chamber.

Of all the proposed builds I've seen here, this might be the first one asking your question. Hopefully a real builder will be along who has more real experience.

good luck

 

[Misterwaterfallin]

Not a builder, but I do "tinker". I wonder how far you'd have to inset the firebox into the smoker to accommodate the radius of your opening. There might be question of how well it would draft and how the hot air would travel thru the cook chamber.

Of all the proposed builds I've seen here, this might be the first one asking your question. Hopefully a real builder will be along who has more real experience.

good luck

Thanks for the feedback. I may just give it a try and see how it goes. Worse case I can just weld it up and do the typical style opening.

 

[seattlepitboss]

Normally the goal is to provide uniform temperatures across your cooking chamber. If you have a hole above your fire, that end would be hotter for sure. Where will your stack go?

Why deliberately introduce a hot spot?

 

[Fooball]

Johnson smokers has been doing that for years with their T-Pit, but they have a baffle in the bottom of the cook chamber to evenly disperse direct heat.

The guy who makes them never really shows the baffle system in pics on the web site or in youtube videos.

A thread here shows a pic on page 3:

https://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=270601

 

[Newglide]

I believe you're talking about cutting into the rounded area of the tank to put your firebox. I've seen it done many times.
Check smoker plans . net for offset smoker.
https://smokerplans.net/collections/offset-smokers

 

[Misterwaterfallin]

Thanks for the help guys, below is a crude drawing of what Im talking about and my potential setup. My goal here is to direct heat around the grate, and make it so the area at the front of the chamber isn't a massive hot spot