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Q-talk *ON TOPIC ONLY* QUALITY ON TOPIC discussion of Backyard BBQ, grilling, equipment and outdoor cookin' . ** Other cooking techniques are welcomed for when your cookin' in the kitchen. Post your hints, tips, tricks & techniques, success, failures, but stay on topic and watch for that hijacking.


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Old 01-01-2017, 09:00 PM   #31
marbque
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I have been able to keep my temps fairly even with our kingman. I have found that if I start a fire too big to fast I will spike on the right side. I have added the log starter and no longer use coal beds. Either way I can close the door on the cooker and have no issues. I have controlled the fire with the door open and it was just as easy.
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Old 01-01-2017, 11:21 PM   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slamkeys View Post

Looking into the cooker from here it's painfully obvious why it has flow issues: the heated air literally has to fight past a wall of steel blocking it from going into the cooker, whereas the upper vent hole offers an easy path out of the firebox, which is not good.

Seems to be a spot on analysis that is hard to argue away! A smoker with ideal air flow should'nt really have heat spilling out of the intakes, at least I know it's possible. My Peoria has a very low intake, and flows only in one direction. The air near the intake stays at ambient temp around it, up until you get close enough to feel the heat from the metal a few inches away.

In the case you demonstrated, an open door would theoretically make things worse.
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Old 01-02-2017, 08:17 PM   #33
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There seems to be a direct correlation between the low point of the heat management plate and the heat build-up in the firebox. I think the original Yoder Wichita probably didn't have a heat management plate, and customers had less flow issues. We can certainly remove the plate, but I paid for it and I want to use it.

I did an analysis using a 6' level to see where the heat build-up would occur at the fire door. The test requires that the pit be perfectly level, because the unit is built with a downward slope towards the grease drain. When the pit is level, the lower shelf is level.

Here's the lower shelf, which is perfectly level:
pit-perfectly-level.jpg

The test involves placing a 6' level under the heat management plate, and then leveling it to see where it intersects with the fire door. This should approximate where the heat build-up occurs. I did a quick mock-up using this Yoder side view, but I didn't want to rely on this rendering because I wasn't sure how accurate it is, so I tested this on my actual smoker.

6-foot-level-side-view.jpg


From this angle, you can see that I have the level wedged directly under the heat management plate, and held level using some props.
6-foot-level-end-view.jpg

The level is dead center:
6-foot-level-perfect-bubble.jpg

... and here is where it aligns with the fire door:
6-foot-level-below-vent-opening.jpg

Notice the smoke build-up line on the inside of the fire door. This completely agrees with this test, and demonstrates that the heat build-up is directly relational to the lowest entry point into the cooker. According to this test, at least half of the upper vent opening will always flow outward, which ruins any design calculations that were used to determine the size of the vent cut-outs.
heat-line-inside-fire-door.jpg

Last edited by slamkeys; 07-06-2017 at 10:06 PM.. Reason: Fix broken image links
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Old 01-03-2017, 01:53 PM   #34
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Some really great analysis here!
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Old 01-03-2017, 07:23 PM   #35
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Yoder should pay you for your time and effort. They will definitely benefit from your work.
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Old 01-03-2017, 07:41 PM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pjtexas1 View Post
Yoder should pay you for your time and effort. They will definitely benefit from your work.
Absolutely agree, as a custom builder I can confirm there is some really good info here!
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Old 01-03-2017, 09:09 PM   #37
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Hmm maybe this is why I struggle with my Brinkmann Cimaron , I'm going to try blocking the upper intake
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Old 01-03-2017, 11:00 PM   #38
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Slamkeys: how is the heat management plate mounted in the cooker? Im wondering if it is possible to somehow prop the low end of the plate up a few inches higher. In order to try and get it to where the far end is level to, or even higher than the plate at the firebox end. That might be an easy way to help eliminate (or reduce) the heat spill at the intakes.

Barring that, it looks like the firebox end plate that you made (the stainless looking one with the single sliding intake) is only a little more intake area than half of the original butterfly intake on the original door. If your arrangement worked well, then it proves that the top part of the original butterfly is redundant (even assuming it were working as an intake, not as a heat dump). How about cutting the butterfly in half at the center, weld on the top half to the door, and rig up the bottom part to slide, using only that as your intake. It's a little bit of work that might pay off if you have access to the tools.

Here's a somewhat random thought. It seems to me that many smokers are "over-intaked". This is probably somewhat oversimplistic, but on the face of things I would think that the intake would not benefit from being much bigger than the size of the exhaust diameter. And because almost all fireboxes are going to leak to some degree, thats an additional source of intake air for the fire (once a draw has been established). I know that many recommend running huge amounts of air through wood fires, but Ive had bad experience with that, because at a certain point when fire is raging and hot enough, it stops being a clean smokeless fire, and instead starts to put out black soot. The wood fire smells different too (Ive read some here it smells perfumey, i thought plasticky or like burning resin).

All that being said, im sure there could be some smoker designs that would benefit from running with an open door, but it would have to be designed to run that way from the beginning (small door relative to size of cooker, firebox and throat sufficiently below cook chamber...also the door would have to be a door cut into the end cap, and not completely open the entire end of the firebox, because that would theoretically dump out half the heat coming from the fire).
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Old 01-03-2017, 11:47 PM   #39
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I've done some intake area math in this related thread: Just Bought a Yoder Loaded Wichita
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Old 01-04-2017, 12:10 AM   #40
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Cut the firebox off and weld it back on 2-3 inches lower and block off lower portion of the FB to cook chamber hole. Take pics along the way and post them.......
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Old 01-04-2017, 01:07 AM   #41
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slamkeys View Post
I've done some intake area math in this related thread: Just Bought a Yoder Loaded Wichita
Haha, just went through it...awesome thread. Good to see that most did not take your observations as someone just complaining. Looking at your other pictures of the outside of the firebox door, i now see that the intake size is much smaller than I thought it was, so yeah just using the bottom one might not give enough air.

What is the maximum temp you can get using your cookie sheet intake? If it were for me, Id like to have enough flow to be able to get to 375-400 in the chamber. Not for cooking so much as for having the option to sterilize thoroughly, and just to know you had some leeway to increase temps when necessary. I've been visited by mold...that is why I now appreciate the ability to produce high temps.
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Old 01-07-2017, 11:20 AM   #42
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After reading this thread and the one posted above on the other Forum, all I can say is Wow. It must be nice to be smarter than everyone at the Yoder company! lol

What is a shame is that I bet Yoder will NOT listen, read, and learn here. I bet they won't change anything, which will be a shame for future customers.

When I first started looking at smokers in the very beginning, I learned about Yoder and almost ordered a Wichita....Glad I didn't now!! But I am glad I read this and learned a bit of info. I think my Old Country Brazos may have a similar issue and I'll have to look into it. I've noticed smoke coming back out the door when open, draft issues, and the fire not burning clean enough with just the door vents open....Of course I'm still using the crappy fire grate that comes with it...I need to order a quality fire grate like you have.
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Old 01-07-2017, 04:03 PM   #43
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I got a Yoder Wichita last year and it was my first proper stick smoker and it took a while to get used to it.

My way of working it - a chimney full of charcoal in the firebox, get it up an hot. Put a couple of splits on and get them burning (this is at least 90 minutes to 2 hours before I actually put meat on cooker). Keep the cook chamber closed but have the vent and stack open. It will get hot (too hot), let the splits burn down to coal and then add some splits at the side to get going again. i then use the door to maintain temps. I find working this way if it gets too hot I can shut it down and get it lower quickly. If I need to up the temp I just open the door more. Also I preheat my splits on top of the firebox.

The first time I cooked on the yoder it was a nightmare. I spent all night nursing the fire as I could not maintain temp. Although I have never been able to get even heat across the cooker even with the heat plate. Nearest the fire is always around 50-75 higher than the other end.

I have experimented with using only charcoal for heat and splits for smoke and it works well but you still have to manage the fire as the temps will drop quickly once the charcoal gets low.
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Old 01-07-2017, 04:17 PM   #44
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Just reading through the other thread linked by Slamkeys - I got my smoker in 2015 and I experienced many of the same issues but I thought it was just me so I muddled through. Reading through the issues he has had to work through now I understand that the yoder has issues from out the door.

It took me a while to work out a way to use this smoker and cook on it but it was hard work (as others are now showing as well).

This thing is so big (I had to take the gate and part of the fence down to get it into my yard) and I got a really good deal that I have not been bothered to try sell it. But I am contacting shirley fab about getting a patio model built. As I will have a year or so before I get one of theirs it gives me time to use the yoder and sell it on.
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Old 01-14-2017, 09:10 PM   #45
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I noticed a new rust stain forming below one of the axles inside the wheel.
wheel-leg-rust-stain.jpg


Looking closer, the welder did a lousy job connecting the welds on the inside of the legs too. Both of them have a visible hole where water is penetrating and rusting, and one of them just looks very amateurish and lumpy. Time for more rust treatment and sealant. This is really getting annoying. It's hard to believe this thing was welded in a controlled environment by a professional welder. The one weld is so bad I can't believe it passed the quality control inspection. This is hardly the quality you would expect after watching Yoder's video of an old craftsman taking pride in the fabrication of his hand-made Wichita.
front-wheel-weld-rust.jpg
rear-wheel-weld-rust.jpg

Last edited by slamkeys; 10-08-2017 at 10:25 AM.. Reason: Fix broken image links
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