question on smoker gaskets

[Rick65]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Rick, living over here in the UK and I believe I have found the holy grail of smoker forums.I hope I will be able to draw on the experience of those life long smokers to help me with a problem I have with the smoker.
We have made a gravity fed smoker which we made(we have 2 actually)which works very well.
The whole build is based on information I have gathered from looking at various American smoker sites over the past couple of years.I am happy with the end results as far as cooking is concerned as we have had some good finishes with various meats,and fish.We are still learning obviously as we are complete novices and realise that this in itself (smoking)is a science and takes years of smoking in order to become proficient.
But to get to the point,there is a problem with the gasket seal on the main door.When a cook is in progress moisture drips out of the bottom corner of the door.The gasket is a pipe type glass fibre filled approx 20mm diam with a flat fixing tab.Is this to be expected,it's pretty air tight so to speak.Any advice would be appreciated.Thank you for taking time to read this thread.
Best.Rick

 

[Lynn Dollar]

Maybe a silicon gasket would work better ? It would be better at sealing the liquid than a fiberglass cloth gasket, which is what I think you have .


These are expensive as gaskets go, but I understand they work well



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CJE1G7...colid=SLL1DNKKW7KM&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it




And welcome, good to hear from the UK . That's a great looking build.

 

[cclinard1]

Weld a small angled piece on the door that points down so that any moisture or grease goes back to the bottom of the cooker and doesn’t run down the door. Nice looking cooker!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[toys4dlr]

The tadpole gaskets along with the angled drip edge should fix the issues. The FEC line of pellet cookers use that type of gasket.

 

[1MoreFord]

Post #3 is the correct answer.

It also provides more rigidity to the door.

 

[Rick65]

Thanks for the feedback all.I believe the gasket we have used is called the Tadpole gasket and yes we have an angled plate fixed to the inside of the door.Should have really sent a pic of the door with gasket.Not heard of a silicon gasket will have to look in to that.Thanks for the positive comments on the cooker.This is going to be a work in progress and may take a while.