UDS - Exhaust - 8 small holes vs smoke stack

Wahoo95 said:

I had a friend helping me with mine and he mistakenly drilled eight 13/16" exhaust holes in my lid. They're just a tad larger than 3/4" so I should be okay right? I bought some plugs to use if that's too much exhaust.

My question is should I run it with 8 vents open or plug 2 of them and go with 6? I have three 3/4" intake holes if that makes a difference.

Click to expand...

U should be fine.

My drum came with a flat lid and no 2" bung. I went with 8 1/2" holes, and it works very well for me. I bought some circle magnets at Menards and use them to cover the holes. Works like a charm and sure looks ugly! See the attached pictures... one with the holes covered, and one without.

Wahoo95 said:

I had a friend helping me with mine and he mistakenly drilled eight 13/16" exhaust holes in my lid. They're just a tad larger than 3/4" so I should be okay right? I bought some plugs to use if that's too much exhaust.

My question is should I run it with 8 vents open or plug 2 of them and go with 6? I have three 3/4" intake holes if that makes a difference.

Click to expand...

I'd run them all open.

I like Sneakneey's design, uses 90' elbows as exhasts so rain does effect, and they can be turned away from the wind if an issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUQbGTSXhdk

So after reading this exhausting (pun intended) arse thread i hope you realize theres no 1 right way. Just vent the damn thing and get to cooking something already!

BTW.... i've built over 20 drums using the 2" exhaust. It works like a charm. :wink:

If you have a hole there already, it works fine.. Mine seems to breathe great.

There is another option. 6 3/4 inch holes IN SIDE (about inch from top) so you can insert rebar to use as hangers for meat. This way, if you no like, no problem... use the holes with no rebar. It might take some tweaking to get the breathing right but if you succeed you have a more versatile smoker.

There is someone on here that did this.

Yeah I've also heard putting the vents in the side below the lid keeps water out

I like 6 one inch holes threaded with nipples. This way you can see the smoke come out from a cylinder, rather than having is spew out of a hole. You can always cap them and I've found that one large exhaust doesn't cook as evenly as multiple smaller exhausts

This very subject is making my head spin. The drums I picked up have flat lids. Was going to drill holes on the side of the drum, just under the top ring. Decided against that for now....picked up (2) 2" 90* elbows and 4' of 2" pipe. Going to mount them on the 180* apart on the sides of the drum. Also have rain caps/flapper valves to put on them...Don't work out I will just cut them off with the plasma cutter and weld some plates over the holes....

Is there a reason why frig magnets cannot be used to seal the holes?

IMHO elbows unless you can rotate them will at some point allow the wind to blow directly into/thru your exhaust and mess up the draft, But you can rotate the lid. The elbows do add weight to the lid. Using the hole locations, you can direct more heat to where the exhaust/exhaust are. This helps cause after dumping in your hot coals onto the new coals you really don't know where/which side the major heat is going to be coming from. Basic eliminates hot spots. I used 2 different size holes and aluminum flashing and a screw to hold the flashing. This was basically a test, but worked so well I never changed the original quick cutouts of the aluminum flashing. They are also adjustable for when running really low temps or really high temps. And when it's really blowing out, I can stand my starter chimney's over the holes to block the wind. Just a thought.