[av8or1]

The main chamber:

Raw tubing material 7.jpg (238.29 KiB) Viewed 4764 times

Then the burn chamber and the smoke stack:

Raw tubing material 8.jpg (240.22 KiB) Viewed 4764 times

[JayWal]

Best looking smoker i know is the one Ryan Nierop on Instagram built. Definitely worth checking out. His bbq account is @stickburnerbbq

Sent from my SM-G970W using Tapatalk

[av8or1]

Thank you for the input Jay, I appreciate it. Yeah, kinda funny, but this is much the same idea that I had in mind! The one you've shown is quite the looker, no doubt! I'll have to take a closer peek at this at some point. That said, I don't want to study it too much, as I'd prefer to create my own and let it be what it'll be. If I see something I like, I am often tempted to replicate it in my build. That in and of itself is fine, but I try to avoid too much blending of ideas. I digress.

There's another similar build too that I found on YouTube not too long ago:
mI50XCjanJs

This one was the most similar to the idea I had in my head, though the one you forwarded is in that same ballpark. The guy in this video used 1/4" material, just as I had planned, and IIRC the lengths were 40" and 20" of the main and burn chambers respectively. And I think that the diameter was 20". He also did something interesting by splitting the tubing length-wise prior to cutting any doors. That seems like a good idea on its face, but not sure it's necessary if one is careful when they go about their build. Any feedback on that?

Regardless, the one we build will be bigger than that; I haven't quite decided if that is a good thing or not, time will tell. The bigger size will allow plenty of space for a second cooking rack though, so we'll see. I'm interested in taking a look at whatever Oscar produces with the 24" tubing that he will be utilizing in his build, even though that will be a grill. Do a build thread Oscar!

Anyway thanks again for the idea.

[Oscar]

I'll try! Too many projects, not enough time!

[LanceR]

I built 2 different smokers. I used feldon's bbq pit builder calculator. It will give size variations and necessary sizes for opening to transfer heat and what size chimney you need. My one smoker is a vertical type with fire box below the cooking chamber and the other is a side box fire box. I seem to be having problems with producing too much creosote and that puts bad taste in the meat. I have used various hardwoods with apple and mesquite for flavor. Couldn't find pipe big enough so I bought plate and tried to find someone to roll the plates. Had one guy tell me he could do it.....failure. Found another company that could roll it, but I would have to mortgage the teepee. Square worked.

Feldon's calculator has some issues, particularly with reverse flow smokers. The calculators at Smoking Meat Forums I linked to above will nearly always work well, especially for reverse flow smokers. And you'll find a lot of knowledgeable pit builders who can answer questions or double check your calculations. Far better to get a second opinion from someone who has built the same style of pit before than to have to go back and rebuild or replace a smoker. They might also have ideas to improve a smoker that needs help.

Reverse flow smokers, where the smoke runs the length of the cook chamber under a fixed plate and reverses to flow back through the cook chamber to vent at the firebox end, tend to be much easier to regulate temperatures in than standard offset smokers with the exhaust at the opposite end from the firebox. They call the moveable plate(s) under the cooking area in straight through smokers "tuning plates" because they need fiddling with. Reverse flow smokers made correctly don't need fiddling with and generally hold even temps in the 25*F range across the width of the smoker.

As Oscar said, creosote is not the result of temperatures. Creosote comes from incomplete combustion and is generally related to an airflow issue.

The thick wall thickness may affect how long it takes to initially warm up but thicker walls also help with fast temperature recovery after having the doors open and with temperature stabilization in gusty winds. If the requisite area of combustion air intakes is split around 80/20 between intakes below the fire grate and at the top of the firebox across from the opening to the cook chamber the upper vents will allow more flexibility in temperature control, not to mention cleaner secondary combustion, including lowering temperatures quickly

Best regards to all,


Lance

[LanceR]

I built 2 different smokers. I used feldon's bbq pit builder calculator. It will give size variations and necessary sizes for opening to transfer heat and what size chimney you need. My one smoker is a vertical type with fire box below the cooking chamber and the other is a side box fire box. I seem to be having problems with producing too much creosote and that puts bad taste in the meat. I have used various hardwoods with apple and mesquite for flavor. Couldn't find pipe big enough so I bought plate and tried to find someone to roll the plates. Had one guy tell me he could do it.....failure. Found another company that could roll it, but I would have to mortgage the teepee. Square worked.

Feldon's calculator has some issues, particularly with reverse flow smokers. The calculators at Smoking Meat Forums I linked to above will nearly always work well, especially for reverse flow smokers. And you'll find a lot of knowledgeable pit builders who can answer questions or double check your calculations. Far better to get a second opinion from someone who has built the same style of pit before than to have to go back and rebuild or replace a smoker. They might also have ideas to improve a smoker that needs help.

Reverse flow smokers, where the smoke runs the length of the cook chamber under a fixed plate and reverses to flow back through the cook chamber to vent at the firebox end, tend to be much easier to regulate temperatures in than standard offset smokers with the exhaust at the opposite end from the firebox. They call the moveable plate(s) under the cooking area in straight through smokers "tuning plates" because they need fiddling with. Reverse flow smokers made correctly don't need fiddling with and generally hold even temps in the 25*F range across the width of the smoker.

As Oscar said, creosote is not the result of temperatures. Creosote comes from incomplete combustion and is generally related to an airflow issue.

The thick wall thickness may affect how long it takes to initially warm up but thicker walls also help with fast temperature recovery after having the doors open and with temperature stabilization in gusty winds. If the requisite area of combustion air intakes is split around 80/20 between intakes below the fire grate and at the top of the firebox across from the opening to the cook chamber the upper vents will allow more flexibility in temperature control, not to mention cleaner secondary combustion, including lowering temperatures quickly

Best regards to all,


Lance

[LanceR]

I built 2 different smokers. I used feldon's bbq pit builder calculator. It will give size variations and necessary sizes for opening to transfer heat and what size chimney you need. My one smoker is a vertical type with fire box below the cooking chamber and the other is a side box fire box. I seem to be having problems with producing too much creosote and that puts bad taste in the meat. I have used various hardwoods with apple and mesquite for flavor. Couldn't find pipe big enough so I bought plate and tried to find someone to roll the plates. Had one guy tell me he could do it.....failure. Found another company that could roll it, but I would have to mortgage the teepee. Square worked.

Feldon's calculator has some issues, particularly with reverse flow smokers. The calculators at Smoking Meat Forums I linked to above will nearly always work well, especially for reverse flow smokers. And you'll find a lot of knowledgeable pit builders who can answer questions or double check your calculations. Far better to get a second opinion from someone who has built the same style of pit before than to have to go back and rebuild or replace a smoker. They might also have ideas to improve a smoker that needs help.

Reverse flow smokers, where the smoke runs the length of the cook chamber under a fixed plate and reverses to flow back through the cook chamber to vent at the firebox end, tend to be much easier to regulate temperatures in than standard offset smokers with the exhaust at the opposite end from the firebox. They call the moveable plate(s) under the cooking area in straight through smokers "tuning plates" because they need fiddling with. Reverse flow smokers made correctly don't need fiddling with and generally hold even temps in the 25*F range across the width of the smoker.

As Oscar said, creosote is not the result of temperatures. Creosote comes from incomplete combustion and is generally related to an airflow issue.

The thick wall thickness may affect how long it takes to initially warm up but thicker walls also help with fast temperature recovery after having the doors open and with temperature stabilization in gusty winds. If the requisite area of combustion air intakes is split around 80/20 between intakes below the fire grate and at the top of the firebox across from the opening to the cook chamber the upper vents will allow more flexibility in temperature control, not to mention cleaner secondary combustion, including lowering temperatures quickly

Best regards to all,


Lance

[av8or1]

Feldon's calculator has some issues, particularly with reverse flow smokers. The calculators at Smoking Meat Forums I linked to above will nearly always work well, especially for reverse flow smokers. And you'll find a lot of knowledgeable pit builders who can answer questions or double check your calculations. Far better to get a second opinion from someone who has built the same style of pit before than to have to go back and rebuild or replace a smoker. They might also have ideas to improve a smoker that needs help.

Thank you Lance for the terrific feedback, I appreciate it! You mentioned a link ... I searched the thread but couldn't find that link. Could you provide it again?

Reverse flow smokers, where the smoke runs the length of the cook chamber under a fixed plate and reverses to flow back through the cook chamber to vent at the firebox end, tend to be much easier to regulate temperatures in than standard offset smokers with the exhaust at the opposite end from the firebox. They call the moveable plate(s) under the cooking area in straight through smokers "tuning plates" because they need fiddling with. Reverse flow smokers made correctly don't need fiddling with and generally hold even temps in the 25*F range across the width of the smoker.

As Oscar said, creosote is not the result of temperatures. Creosote comes from incomplete combustion and is generally related to an airflow issue.

The thick wall thickness may affect how long it takes to initially warm up but thicker walls also help with fast temperature recovery after having the doors open and with temperature stabilization in gusty winds. If the requisite area of combustion air intakes is split around 80/20 between intakes below the fire grate and at the top of the firebox across from the opening to the cook chamber the upper vents will allow more flexibility in temperature control, not to mention cleaner secondary combustion, including lowering temperatures quickly

Fantastic information, thanks!

I liked the idea of 3/8" instead of 1/4" generally speaking, for much the reasons you have stated. Seemed to me like it would be more stable once at temperature. This thicker wall tubing was all they had anyway, so there wasn't much choice if I wanted tubing for this cheap of a price. I hadn't thought of a vent at the top of the burn chamber, so I'll have to consider that when the time comes. The 80/20 thing sounds like a good strategy though...

Another aspect of the build that I've been pondering lately is the end caps. I will need to build those from flat plate. Should I use 3/8" or 1/4"? I'm kinda leaning towards 1/4", with the thought being that it will be sufficient for my needs. It would also be a tad easier to work with it seems.

Thanks!
Jerry

[av8or1]

I managed to begin the build today. Well sorta. I decided that I wanted to use the new welding table to do at least some of the work. Therefore I decided to put it into position closer to the outbuilding. At 1200+ pounds, that would be no small feat. But again, I built a gantry.

It needed to be moved first. So I raised it off of the ground about an inch and secured it between the gantry verticals with ratchet straps. This would maintain a low CG and temper the pendulum effect. I don't like moving the gantry when it is under load; I decided after it was completed that I would do so only if necessary but attempt to avoid it altogether. For a number of reasons, this move was necessary. And so I proceeded. Da Beast (my F-450) pulled the crane easily and with that the table was closer to the workshop. That ended up being all too easy actually. However it was still a bit too close to the grass for my tastes, so I decided to bring it further in laterally WRT the workshop. No problem. I rotated the tires on the gantry 90-degrees and was able to push it a few feet by hand.

At that point I let it down and welded on some temporary feet:

My table 4.jpg (64.18 KiB) Viewed 4671 times

After some thought I didn't like what I was coming up with WRT table mobility in the form of casters. Since I won't need to move it all that often, I decided that I'd just weld on some plate, set it down and use the gantry whenever I need to move it. I am considering an option with a Jeep axle, but that will need to come later (if at all). For the present, I merely want to begin using it straight away. And so feet it is. I elected to just use 4 of the larger lift tabs that I brought home in the night's haul this week. They'll do for now.

That done I rigged up the table and began the process of turning it right-side-up:

My table 5.jpg (69.78 KiB) Viewed 4671 times

[av8or1]

I would need to employ a couple of car dollies in order to prevent the two feet on the lower side from banging into and then dragging along the asphalt as the table was flipped. That plan worked out well. Those dollies are designed to hold a considerable amount of weight. They were reinforced for additional strength too, so this job was not an issue for them to complete. So with a little fettling, the table found its new home:

My table 6.jpg (75.17 KiB) Viewed 4670 times

Note the ram jack circled in the above picture. This section of the property near the outbuilding has a slight pitch to it. Not much, but enough that the trolley will slowly run to the downwind side of the main beam. If let go, it will softly impact the end, coming to a stop only then. I didn't want to have to contend with that business while maneuvering a 1200+ lb table, and so I pulled out the mini-me air compressor and levelled the beam via this ram jack. Incredibly. Freakin'. COOL!

Naturally my son just *had* to play on it:

My table 7.jpg (221.29 KiB) Viewed 4670 times

And so I let him do so, being careful to keep an eye on him as he did so, dontchaknow. He did help a bit later on (I insisted that he and mama remain indoors while the heavy lifting was being conducted) with the cleanup. So for that we went for ice cream and therefore that is all of the progress I would be able to manage today. Didn't even touch the actual smoker raw material!

Oh well the table is in position and I can begin work at the next available opportunity. Now that I think about it though, I'm not sure what I'll be able to get done until I source the plate that will comprise the end caps ... meh, I can find something to do tomorrow, I'm sure!

Anyway thanks.

[BugHunter]

I think creosote buildup comes from too low of a stack temperature. It's going to be a fact of life in anyting where you don't have a roaring Flame.

[LanceR]

Hmmm....I know I posted some links to a smoker build thread but it must not have been this one. Sorry for the confusion.

Smoking Meat Forums has well over 100K members worldwide and has a wealth of pit building info whether you want to build a classic brick showpiece with built in Santa Anna grill, gas grill and fridge or a trailer mounted monster to feed 2,000 hungry people.

Under the "Smoker Builds" heading you'll see several sub-forums. Look in the "Side Firebox" or "Reverse Flow" sections for info. Spend a little time researching build like you want and comparing the plus or minuses of each style. As I said, I prefer reverse flow designs as they tend to be more predictable and less finicky that straight through smokers.

Especially in the reverse flow sub-forum you'll find all kinds of solid info as to why Feldon's calculator is less that desirable.

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum ... uilds.197/

I like you gantry crane a lot. I used to have a 5,800 square foot farm shop before we downsized and retired. Of all the industrial metal and wood working equipment and mechanics equipment the thing I miss the most is the gantry crane.

BugHunter, creosote is almost 100% related to clean combustion which is in turn related to proper air flow. If the wood is cleanly burned there are no particles to create creosote.

One thing that can sometimes cause a slight build up of smoke particles on the product is hitting it with too much smoke, especially when the product is still cold or cool from just starting out as the particles condense onto the product. The goal is to have very light blue/grey smoke coming out of the stack. Darker smoke indicates incomplete combustion and will lead to possible buildup of nasty things AKA creosote.

Best regards to all,


Lance

[BugHunter]

I figure the wood is the wood. I'm not sure how you can make it burn any more "clean", other than to evacuate the dirt with more air, or change which wood you burn.

Take for instance an oil furnace/boiler. Stack temp (at least on the last one I owned and installed) has to be maintained at around 600F in order to keep from having sulfur precipitate out of the exhaust gases. In other words, at less than 600f, all that gunk sticks to the sides of the flue because it's not hot enough to keep it all dissolved in the exhaust. Now, depending on the heating appliance, those recommended temps vary some. But, in my residential boiler, setting for those stack temps kept the unit 100% clean as a whistle, stack pipe and all. And did so at max efficiency. Yes, short term higher efficiency can be had at a lower stack temp, but at the cost of long term it will lose efficiency at an unacceptable rate due to dirt making the heat exchanger dirty (insulated).

The big difference on a boiler is you're looking for combustion efficiency, which obviously isn't the case on a smoker or cooker. Now, I've spent a fair amount of time studying how to set up boilers, but not so much on wood burners. The only way I ever knew to stop creosote was to either burn so hot the stuff doesn't have time to stick to the flue, or burn a different fuel that contains less or none of the tar to begin with.

[Poland308]

Lots of ways around combustion issues. Some oil burners inject live steam into the air / gas stream. Moisture bonds with certain particles and cleans up the burn. Even wood moisture can change things tremendously. Controlling the air is only a small part of the combustion process.

[BugHunter]

I don't even know if the combustion process is a factor in cooking. The stack is all of 3 ft long and you can clean it with your hand and a wire brush. It ain't like a chimney that's three stories in the air and requires a manlift to access. If it starts to build up, grab a stick and beat the stuff out.

I'm not sure the design of the cooker has 1/10 the importance of having a person who is familiar with their cooker and how to use it. I wasn't trying to start a brouhaha or anyting, just trying to relay my own experiences. A quick Google search showed that while my temperature for heating oil was different than wood, the premise is still correct.

[Oscar]

I figure the wood is the wood. I'm not sure how you can make it burn any more "clean",

The key element is that it's not burning out in the open. Out in the open in the abundance of oxygen, it will indeed burn clean. But that is not the typical scenario inside a smoker, where the airflow has to be purposely metered in conjunction with the mass and sizes/shapes of the wood logs/chunks. It's a double edged sword: You can't get a super clean burn because you can't have a raging fire going on in there, unless the "chunks" are the size of chips, at which point it's counter productive to keep opening the firebox every 5 minutes to dump more chips in there. The necessary evil is that the logs/chunks must be sized as to provide a good burning time, but also to burn decently clean. This is where choosing the size/shape of the logs/chunks becomes the "art" of learning how the smoker behaves with respect to burn-time and temperature. You want the logs/chunks sizes so that, upon their addition, the remainder of the burning coals is "dying out" at just the right rate so that by the time the logs/chunks start to catch on fire, they are also doing so and releasing heat at the same rate to keep the temperature decently stabilized, so they kinda equalize each other, and round and round you go as you keep on adding firewood until you are done cooking. In a smaller smoker like mine, the addition of new firewood ends up using up a good amount of oxygen, so I usually open the air intake vents completely to make sure they catch on fire good without them suffocating what coals are already there. After a couple minutes, I reduce the vent openings back the the "usual" positions, and I can go back to sleep for another 1.5-2 hours before I have to wake up again to add just the right amount of extra firewood. Then after about 24-30 hours of doing this, out comes the most tender brisket ever.

So tender, you can barely pick up a slice it falls apart. A newborn baby can chew on it without discomfort.










Now I've gotten myself craving brisket! Gonna make some this weekend! Do you think I have enough blackjack oak?

[av8or1]

Do you have a picture of your smoker Oscar? Did you build it? Curious to know its dimensions, etc.

Thanks!

[Oscar]

No I didn't build it, I bought it at Walmart on clearance about 18 years ago. It's about 16" square, 14g, about 1meter tall. I've stuffed that thing with 45lbs of brisket and catered for about 90-100 people, but it was pushing it. I had to keep moving the briskets to get even cooking/airflow. I need to make a larger one; just like this one, vertical.

[BugHunter]

Your brisket does look great Oscar. I always appreciate when someone can take the time to make a labor of love like that. I seldom make brisket only because so many others in my family already do. The recipe we use is a relic from when Chris Kimball had first started Cooks Illustrated Magazine MANY years ago. Several of my sisters subscribed to that back then and may still for all I know. My sister in Dallas was the first to try it and soon after, my oldest sister here in PA started making it for all the family get togethers. It was a long drawn out affair like yours. 24-36 hours, but largely using a gas grill, then optionally moving to the oven to finish. Looked similar to yours but without as much char due to finishing the cooking in heavy foil. I want to say 4 hours of smoking with indirect heat in the grill with wood in a container over fire so it only smokes vs burning. Then cooked in foil either indoors or still on the grill.

I made a ham last night for the purpose of making split pea soup (I make a BIG batch and invite folks for dinner, then have leftovers). I'll post a pic of that in a minute. I stole some last night, just for testing of course, and omg was it good. Mmm mmm.

[BugHunter]

Granted, this ham was done in the oven but 5 hours and it is perfection. LOL

[BillE.Dee]

hey buggy,,,,I KNOW where you live !!!!

[BugHunter]

hey buggy,,,,I KNOW where you live !!!!

You stop by and I'm sure you won't be hungry when you leave. I'm probably going to make onion rolls tonight for ham sandwiches so it's a soup/sandwiches thing. Only thing missing is there's no more tomatoes from the garden cept for cherry tomatoes... Gonna have to be store-bought ones that suck.

[av8or1]

Well it was a slow week. The steel supplier didn't return my email inquiry for the 1/4" plate for a couple of days. So I sent it to another supplier who replied approximately that slow also. I finally heard back from both of them on Thursday. Too late in the week for a pickup, as they usually need a days notice, depending on what you purchase. Oh well; hopefully early next week. With the rate of return however I told them to narrow my order to just the plate, thinking that perhaps I can get a little quicker turnaround. TBD.

With that result, I called the fella from whom I bought the table and tubing for the main and burn chambers. I asked if he had anything smaller that I could use for the legs. Turns out he had some stuff. So the son and I went out tonight to take a look-see. Came home with these:

Raw tubing material 9.jpg (222.58 KiB) Viewed 4441 times

I was hoping to find more of the size of the tubing that you see on the leftmost side of the picture. Not sure that there is quite enough for 4 full legs. That brings me to a related question though: anyone have a recommendation for height? Standard 36"? And where would that amount terminate? Need to do some thinking and measuring ...

Thanks!

[Oscar]

You'd likely need a couple of 10ft'ers to curt the legs out of, unless you perhaps build a shelf at the bottom to install casters/wheels. That would take to some height.

[av8or1]

Alright so ... in preparation for the eventuality of sourcing the plate. I thought I'd do the homework in the interim. What homework? The stuff that you do to calculate how your BBQ smoker should be configured. So I went to that forum titled smokingmeatforums.com, read a few threads regarding the subject and even read a couple regarding the issue with Feldon's calculator. As it turns out, if you use that calculator correctly (1.5 factor for reverse flow builds, etc.), it's pretty accurate. And so I ran a few numbers using the formulas I found on the forum. I then ran the numbers using Feldon's calculator. They came out roughly equal, with the difference being in the fractions. So I felt comfortable with those numbers.

However, like with most things in life, there's a catch. You see, I had the fella I purchased the tubing from cut the burn chamber (or "fire box") a little larger than I normally would have. I did that because the wife-eee expressed interest in using the burn chamber as a stove top. That is, fabricating a top for it such that you could fry stuff in a pan or boil stuff in a pot. Y'all are likely familiar with that configuration. And so out of the 80" I had available, I made the burn chamber 27". The main chamber is almost double that at almost 53". According to the calculators, the volume yield for the main chamber is thus 23964.48"3 (cubic inches) while the burn chamber is 12214.15"3 (cubic inches).

And the latter number is where the rub seems to lie (though who knows, it might not be a big deal in the end, I don't know yet). Their recommended burn chamber size is 7988.16"3 (cubic inches), resulting in a differential of 152.9%. According to what I've read you want that percentage to be at 100% ... in this case, with a 24" diameter, you'd need a length of around 18". Fellas, that just wouldn't be enough to cook on, not even close. So I dunno. The recommended mating size of the two chambers (ergo how big the football shaped opening be between the two tubes) is 11.16". That number kinda makes sense to me, but I'd want to measure that and then mock-up the two tubes to see how it would look prior to welding anything.

So. What to do? Well, unless I decided to shorten the burn chamber, I'll have to live with the oversized-ness of that chamber according to these calculations. Given the wall thickness, a larger burn chamber might not be a bad thing; even the Feldon's calculator makes reference to a burn chamber being better if slightly oversized than under. Granted 152% is a bit extreme thereof, but ... I digress. Yeah, I think we're just a-gonna have to live with it as-is. We want to be able to do the stove top thing and so that's the way it'll be.

Any feedback is welcome though, as always.

Thanks!