Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 You have good taste Mark, those are some expensive pits, from everything I read unless you need more room, the better Weber's are very good. the sell parts that go on the inside to really allow you to slow cook also. When I went to build I read alot about the reverse flow, I found that some were not as good as others as far as equal temps, and it's permanent which kind of scared me if I built something wrong. I ended up going with something not completely different, tuning plates. It helped alot I was at 50-60 degrees difference over 4'-5' apart now it's about 20 or less and I keep adjusting, it may get better. I think that's pretty good with an offset firebox ? You just slide the plates to make the openings smaller closer to the firebox and bigger toward the other end. http://www.bbquepits.com/images/ACCESSORIES/TUNING_PLATES.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1101 Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 I like the tuning plate idea. With an offset fire box you are going to have that hot spot because the fire is big. The Stumps uses a small plate down-angled over the entrance to the food chamber to deflect and distribute the heat from the fire. It is a well insulated cooking chamber and so you only have a very small fire to deal with. I would never the spend the money on those expensive cookers, although I look at them all the time. Heck, 1 Weber holds more food than we can eat in a week, and it only cost $80.00. If I ran across an old used one, I might go for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 Glad you said that, insulated firebox and the whole thing insulated if it's a style that can be. Anyone from the North would want an insulated model. They use much less wood and you could imagine trying to keep hundreds of pounds of steel heated when it's really low temps up north. For just smoking I like the vertical smokers, like Stumps, completely insulated and very efficient and easy to control even without all the electronics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Boy, that Lang smoker sure is nice. The 36" is all I would need. Dtel, I can see those plates doing the trick too. This is a nice one using plates on that "smoke ring" site. http://www.thesmokering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52351&sid=5129a991af9d7c46e9d764cbcf5869e2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 This is what the insides of a Stumps clone looks like being built, not hard to build just the materials can add up quickly. http://www.thesmokering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49854&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Blacksmith Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Tuning plates work well and the baffel you mention by the fire box helps. My personal cooker is an offset end firebox, barrel type and I had to add the plate between the fire box and the cooker. It helped somewhat but I am going to make the fire box longer and change the smoke flow. I may even reverse the side the fire box is on to get a reverse flow through the smoker. Another thing I could do would be to move the stack, lower the firebox to under the grate and go with plates. This would lower the raidated heat from the fire and move the smoke through the smoker more evenly. In my current setup, I moved the inlet to the exhaust stack from the top of the smoker to the smoke grates to help get a more even smoke fill, by lowering the inlet down, this forces the chamber to fill with smoke before leaving the cooker. It is like the audio hobby, once you have something that works, you wonder about what tweak would make it better [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 I seen that a few days ago, he did a great job and even added some Texas style and he is in Norway. It's not hard to do, find a propane tank or pipe the size you want and go nuts. Be VERY CAREFUL with propane tanks, you have to air them out, I filled mine up with water a couple of times, drained and let an air compressor blow air into it to make sure it was not combustible. And was still VERY nervous making that first cut. [] Compressor tanks also work, but sometimes are a little thin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Blacksmith Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 I seen that a few days ago, he did a great job and even added some Texas style and he is from Norway. It's not hard to do, find a propane tank or pipe the size you want and go nuts. Be VERY CAREFUL with propane tanks, you have to air them out, I filled mine up with water a couple of times, drained and let an air compressor blow air into it to make sure it was not combustible. And was still VERY nervous making that first cut. Compressor tanks also work, but sometimes are a little thin. BE VERY CAREFUL!!!!!! You can't "wash" away hydrocarbon residue from the tank easily. There is a trash oil that is deposited into LP tanks and it is flamible. When I cut an old LP tank to use as a forge, I take the valve off the tank and fill it with water. I then use a plasma torch to cut the tank open WITH THE TANK STILL FULL OF WATER! No O2, no fire, no kaboom! Once the tank is opened up, the explosion risk is gone. There may still be a fire but explosion, no. You may try flushing with an inert gas such as Argon for a while before cutting to remove the O2 from the tank. An Oxy Acc. torch will supply all the O2 you need for an explosion to an empty tank (no combustion is 100% efficent and you will have unburnt PURE O2 injected into the tank!) that is not filled with water. Gas tanks (gasoline) that were supposed to have been flushed still cause a great many deaths every year. If in doubtt......DONT! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 I moved the inlet to the exhaust stack from the top of the smoker to the smoke grates to help get a more even smoke fill, by lowering the inlet down, this forces the chamber to fill with smoke before leaving the cooker. I seen some people have done this, and I was not sure why, makes sense. [Y] Your right about this hobby, it's not just fun you can eat the results. [] Having no experience and just looking at different designs I went with an offset firebox with tuning plates, it seems to be doing good. Although I went big, If i ever do it again I would make it a more reasonable size, but this one's built so it's just has enough extra space for a small cow ! He's got some nice cookers also http://www.tejassmokers.com/smoker.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Blacksmith Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Dtel, Did you make that? Fantastic job if you did! Nice rig if you bought it too! Well, no internet at home and the wife goes to the doctor tomorow so be back the day after tomorow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 BE VERY CAREFUL!!!!!! You can't "wash" away hydrocarbon residue from the tank easily. There is a trash oil that is deposited into LP tanks and it is flamible. When I cut an old LP tank to use as a forge, I take the valve off the tank and fill it with water. I then use a plasma torch to cut the tank open WITH THE TANK STILL FULL OF WATER! No O2, no fire, no kaboom! Once the tank is opened up, the explosion risk is gone. There may still be a fire but explosion, no. You may try flushing with an inert gas such as Argon for a while before cutting to remove the O2 from the tank. An Oxy Acc. torch will supply all the O2 you need for an explosion to an empty tank (no combustion is 100% efficent and you will have unburnt PURE O2 injected into the tank!) that is not filled with water. Gas tanks (gasoline) that were supposed to have been flushed still cause a great many deaths every year. If in doubtt......DONT! Your right and if there's a problem you will never know, they may not even find a piece of you ! Not the same but I have to tell you about this. A friend of mine had a good size hole in the back of his property he would burn things in and had a bunch of branches in there untill they dried enough to burn. He had a beer keg someone gave him he thought he would make a boiling pot out of but changed his mind, so he threw it in the hole. A few day later he lit the branches on fire and was walking back to the house and something exploded, he turned and seen pieces of metal flying 200' in the air. Forgetting the keg was in there we went around and found pieces of twisted beer keg, two pieces each a little less than half of the keg and some smaller pieces. What we "guess" is the left over beer had turned into alcohol and the heat expanded the tank and it exploded. It would have been enough to flip a car over, it blew all the branches out, which were alot and twisted up the beer keg and sent it hundreds of feet ripped apart, you could guess what it would do if you were standing close. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 Dtel, Did you make that? Fantastic job if you did! Nice rig if you bought it too! Well, no internet at home and the wife goes to the doctor tomorow so be back the day after tomorow. Good luck with the doc. No I made this one, the big ugly....matches me ! [] Some pics building and after paint. It was started about 2 years ago and I finaly got around to working on it again to get it finished. The firebox does not get out of shape or anything but I may replace it with 1/4" eventually or if I run across the metal ? http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/dtel2/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete H Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Great thread guys! Me and a buddy are in the process of building a big tow behind off set smoker with a 500 gallon oil tank as the heart of the unit. I'll have to snap some pictures when we work on it again. I'm going to try some of these ideas, they sound wonderful. I have another friend that smokes all the time and consistently makes the best brisket I've ever had so I'll have to quiz him about it and post his method. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 Yep we will need pic's, sounds big. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete H Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Yep we will need pic's, sounds big. 15 years in the low country in South Carolina means if you can put 1 pig on it, wouldn't 2 be better. or a pig and a gator tail some oysters a few smoked red fish, a butt load of shrimp and a Cobia if it's in season. There's just no gathering like a southern smokin or grillin.............Darn, I'm getting really hungry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 Yep we will need pic's, sounds big. 15 years in the low country in South Carolina means if you can put 1 pig on it, wouldn't 2 be better. or a pig and a gator tail some oysters a few smoked red fish, a butt load of shrimp and a Cobia if it's in season. There's just no gathering like a southern smokin or grillin.............Darn, I'm getting really hungry! Anything you can fit in there should be good. [Y] This is not directed at you Pete, but you reminded me of it so I wanted to put it here for people thinking about building. PIT CALCULATOR................................TRY IT don't go through the trouble building something without the right air flow... For anyone who is building a BBQ/smoker this is a calculator some smart people put together, [] it makes sure all your sizes are correct for proper air flow. Air intakes, opening between firebox and pit, firebox size for pit size, and exhaust sizes. It's really easy to use and starts with tank size, round or square and every thing is figured from there, try it. http://www.feldoncentral.com/bbqcalculator.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 The pit calculator is neat! I'm thinking a small Stump clone would be an interesting build. I've been reading up on them over at the "smoke ring" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 18, 2011 Moderators Share Posted July 18, 2011 The pit calculator is neat! I'm thinking a small Stump clone would be an interesting build. I've been reading up on them over at the "smoke ring" I thought it was also, the Stump clone is neat and probably really easy to control for long smokes. That calculator is what helped me finish my smoker. I started it a couple years ago and didn't have the exhaust or intakes big enough and just let it sit thinking I will finish it one day. I ran across the smoke ring and found the calculator and fixed my problems and it seems to work great now. I also found the tuning plate idea there and used it, that place is full of ideas and even how to cook different things, so I signed up. They have been very helpful, especial someone named K.A.M, he answered questions I had and gave me other ideas. [Y] Kind of like this place, many here has helped me over the years, and with that help I saved a bunch of money compared to just experimenting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete H Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Anything you can fit in there should be good. This is not directed at you Pete, but you reminded me of it so I wanted to put it here for people thinking about building. PIT CALCULATOR................................TRY IT don't go through the trouble building something without the right air flow... More information is always a good thing. We will have to run our plans through the program and see what it tells us. We are still early in this build so we can modify the design if something doesn't look like it's going to function properly. Thanks for the link! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 I'm guessing the pit calculator would not apply to a Stumps type smoker? I think that calculator is for the typical offset type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.