rikun
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2012
- Location
- Tampere...
Okay, this might seem like a weird question...
But, how do you know you have good draft / airflow in your RF offset smoker? How do you know if you have too much? Can you have too much?
I've built my own a few years ago and ran it around 30 times, always having some kind of trouble. I think I have pretty good draft, but I'm not entirely sure.
At the time of my build, I studied all the builds very closely and modeled mine after Feldon's calculator and then added some 50% to the critical points (throat size, area under RF plate and the gap at the end, firebox is 109%).
I mean, the fire burns nicely and splits catch fire immediately. But, I have a really hard time maintaining a small fire, I have to choke down the intake air almost closed and sometimes the fire will go out if I do that.
But if I open it even a hair more, I get a raging fire with flames almost up to the firebox top. Granted, I oversized my inlets a lot (like almost 300-500%) according to Feldon's calculator so I might need to close them down permanently a bit.
Also my splits burn in around 15-20 minutes, so that doesn't seem right... They are a little bit bigger than my wrist.
The food never tastes bitter, quite the opposite, the smoke flavor is very very subdued. I know it should be subtle with stick burner, but I've never had BBQ from other stick burners with this little smoke flavor. I mainly burn Oak, Hickory or stronger woods aren't available here.
I'm getting kinda tired battling with this smoker, almost seems that she's impossible to control. I've read all the guides to stick burning and I think I'm not doing anything wrong, smoke is sweet blue to translucent.
But, how do you know you have good draft / airflow in your RF offset smoker? How do you know if you have too much? Can you have too much?
I've built my own a few years ago and ran it around 30 times, always having some kind of trouble. I think I have pretty good draft, but I'm not entirely sure.
At the time of my build, I studied all the builds very closely and modeled mine after Feldon's calculator and then added some 50% to the critical points (throat size, area under RF plate and the gap at the end, firebox is 109%).
I mean, the fire burns nicely and splits catch fire immediately. But, I have a really hard time maintaining a small fire, I have to choke down the intake air almost closed and sometimes the fire will go out if I do that.
But if I open it even a hair more, I get a raging fire with flames almost up to the firebox top. Granted, I oversized my inlets a lot (like almost 300-500%) according to Feldon's calculator so I might need to close them down permanently a bit.
Also my splits burn in around 15-20 minutes, so that doesn't seem right... They are a little bit bigger than my wrist.
The food never tastes bitter, quite the opposite, the smoke flavor is very very subdued. I know it should be subtle with stick burner, but I've never had BBQ from other stick burners with this little smoke flavor. I mainly burn Oak, Hickory or stronger woods aren't available here.
I'm getting kinda tired battling with this smoker, almost seems that she's impossible to control. I've read all the guides to stick burning and I think I'm not doing anything wrong, smoke is sweet blue to translucent.