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Having trouble getting my Reverse Flow/Offset working properly


dobson156

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3 hours ago, Mick said:

Yes definitely does a longer chimney will pull a lot more air through

Ok great, I've got quite a lot of that flue tubing (the guy gave me some- perhaps he knew the experiments I had in store) so I can play around with it.

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Ok,  a bit of an update

So I used foil tape to tape up the 'seams' to baffles and I also taped over the perforations in the floor plate and pulled the floor plate towards the chimney a bit to leave a wide opening at the side furthest the firebox - effectively creating a traditional reverse flow smoker.

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I also took the opportunity to seal up the join in the flue.

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I loaded two chimneys of a mix of lump charcoal and briquettes and started burning kindling sized chunks on it. I have the same issue I had before, once the firebox door was shut the flames would die down the wood would smoulder.

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When the door was cracked open it does burn with a decent flame. However the fire need attendance every 5 or 10 mins it seems to burn through the wood very quickly it the fire is going well. I daren't put bigger piece on because I think it might struggle.

Another thing I notice is that the smoke coming out of the chimney is quick  thick but that could be because the fire isn't hot enough.

I also tried extending the chimney as mentioned above, this did indeed appear improve the draw speed of the smoke. However the smoke is still thicker than I'd like and I still need to crack the firebox door.

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On recommendation here I bought on those inkbird probes and place a probe at the side nearest the firebox, the far side (where the exhaust does it's U-turn) and the middle.

When the fire is up and going well then the one closest the fire box gets up to about 90C, the one in the middle 80C and the one at the end 85C. I think these would get higher if I could sustain a bigger fire.

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Ok another quick, update. For some reason I'd been positioning my fire underneath the exhaust outlet in the firebox, I moved it over to the opposite side so it was directly above the air inlet. 

Now I was able to run the fire without the firebox door open! Progress. It was still a lot of work though, the fire was anything but self managing. 

I could still do with an answer to my above question, what should the fire even be like, should the wood be burning with a hot flame? Once all the 'new' wood had burnt off then the residual coals sitting at the side under the inlet was actual able to get the temperature in the smoke chamber quite high.

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PS I hope there are no rules across posting this same question across different sites as I've also summed up my experiences so far here:

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/diy-reverse-flow-smoker-wont-get-hot-or-sustain-big-fire-modification-project.287777/

Because I used their guide for figuring out the chamber sizes:

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/reverse-flow-smoker-how-to-calculate-build-tutorial.268692/

If I use their guide it suggests the tube that connects the FB and CC might not be quick wide enough. Which either means altering the design or shortening the CC (as the width of the connection is determined by the volume of the CC).

Edited by dobson156
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