Ready to begin a smoking adventure

I'm finally moving into a single family home with a real yard at the end of January. I've been really interested in smoking after watching Aaron Franklin's videos on YouTube, watching his master class, and reading his book. When I get into something, I tend to go all-in obsessive much to my wife's chagrin. I've been eyeing a number of offset smokers and even considered building my own from scratch between now and the Spring.

One question I had was Aaron Franklin talks about placing the exhaust for the smokestack at grate level because it encourages the airflow across the meat vice up to the top of the CC and the science there makes a lot of sense to me. Yet, I don't think I've seen any smokers except Aaron's bbq pit and some custom ones with that smokestack placement. Does that actually make much of a difference and if it does, why is it so uncommon?

Anyway, excited to join on this journey with you all and looking forward to swapping stories and pics.

Rock'n B said:

My opinion if your building a offset your stack needs to be close to center of your bottom rack, you want it to pull the heat and smoke across your meat.

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If that's the case why does essentially every smoker you can buy have the stack on top?

Rock'n B said:

If you look at most of the bigger offsets built by Pitt builders not the smaller stamped out ones the stacks are center of the grate or close to it.

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Bruce, that helped a lot actually. I realized that my searches were always for specific brands, but when I opened the aperture a bit I found Jambo, Horizon, and Lone Star that all have exhausts and grate level. I appreciate the assistance :grin: