I must admit I haven't logged into this forum for a long time but this is where I learned to smoke on my UDS and I've made lots of good briskets and pork butt since.
I found a used stainless, double walled, insulated gas smoker in great shape and bought it planning to convert it to use charcoal, not gas. I have no experience with a cabinet smoker.
On my UDS I've wondered what percentage of the air blown inside the drum by the controller fan actually feeds the fire in the charcoal basket heating the drum vs what percentage bypasses the charcoal basket so actually cools the drum? Blowing ambient temperature air into the 250F drum would cool it, no? If a significant percentage of the inlet air is cooling instead of heating the drum, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Considering this, on the cabinet smoker I'm converting, could it be an improvement to run an air inlet pipe from the fan all the way under the charcoal basket and add a 90 degree fitting to direct air upwards into the charcoal basket? Maybe with this configuration a higher percentage of the air from the fan would feed the burning charcoal and less air would bypass the charcoal basket actually cooling the smoke chamber. Thoughts?
I found a used stainless, double walled, insulated gas smoker in great shape and bought it planning to convert it to use charcoal, not gas. I have no experience with a cabinet smoker.
On my UDS I've wondered what percentage of the air blown inside the drum by the controller fan actually feeds the fire in the charcoal basket heating the drum vs what percentage bypasses the charcoal basket so actually cools the drum? Blowing ambient temperature air into the 250F drum would cool it, no? If a significant percentage of the inlet air is cooling instead of heating the drum, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Considering this, on the cabinet smoker I'm converting, could it be an improvement to run an air inlet pipe from the fan all the way under the charcoal basket and add a 90 degree fitting to direct air upwards into the charcoal basket? Maybe with this configuration a higher percentage of the air from the fan would feed the burning charcoal and less air would bypass the charcoal basket actually cooling the smoke chamber. Thoughts?