What it takes to be BI...

[longwayfromhome]

This phrase was unknown to me (in a BBQ sense that is) until recorded by SmittyJonz to describe a smoker that is fired sometimes with wood, sometimes with charcoal.

I have also noted that several pit builders/manufacturers say not to fire their vertical insulated cabinets with wood else damage is to be expected. I assume this is because the higher radiant heat obtained with wood can damage the inner skins of these cabinets which seem to have firebox linings which are thinner than wood burning cookers.

So, don't jump on me, but say you did want to be BI with a horizontal offset that was expected by the manufacturer to only ever really use wood (not talking about occasional charcoal use or use of charcoal to establish a bed of embers before wood goes on)... what would be the design considerations you would have to think about to be sure a horizontal offset smoker could successfully be BI. One I can think of is to have a good charcoal basket because the grate on some wood fired smokers is a bit basic. What else?

 

[Fwismoker]

If one would want to be fuel inefficient and waste money then by all means run charcoal in a offset. No design would make one become half way efficient.... Taking heat sideways in addition to having to heat up a bunch of steel doesn't make much sense with charcoal. Straight vertical is completely different though, charcoal or wood is all good. :becky:

Bottom line if you want to burn charcoal get a charcoal smoker and if you want to burn wood get a stick burner. There's a few exceptions but not many.

 

[FireChief]

If one would want to be fuel inefficient and waste money then by all means run charcoal in a offset. No design would make one become half way efficient.... Taking heat sideways in addition to having to heat up a bunch of steel doesn't make much sense with charcoal. Straight vertical is completely different though, charcoal or wood is all good. :becky:

Bottom line if you want to burn charcoal get a charcoal smoker and if you want to burn wood get a stick burner. There's a few exceptions but not many.

Yup. Couldn't have said it better myself...

 

[longwayfromhome]

If one would want to be fuel inefficient and waste money then by all means run charcoal in a offset. No design would make one become half way efficient.... Taking heat sideways in addition to having to heat up a bunch of steel doesn't make much sense with charcoal. Straight vertical is completely different though, charcoal or wood is all good. :becky:

Bottom line if you want to burn charcoal get a charcoal smoker and if you want to burn wood get a stick burner. There's a few exceptions but not many.

Mmm... not trying to be argumentative here, trying to understand. Since the air is heated in a separate box in an offset and then drawn sideways, we aren't talking radiant heat, but simply the hot air and other gasses/particles. This is, in principle the same with charcoal (not arguing the qualities of the gasses).

Anyway, what are these "few exceptions" and why do you think they work?

 

[mike-cleveland]

As heat travels it will cool, the longer it travels the more it cools. Also the less effective force it has as it is spread out. This comes down to size of fire. Coals in an offset is just not efficient unless they are of decent size.

In an offset, you need heat to travel horizontal which it does not want to do. It wants to flow up and you lose a bunch thru the absorption of the firebox. By design this is good because a wood fire produces a lot of heat.

Trying to maintain a charcoal base in an offset would be very inefficient. I guess you could design a pit to work that way, but you would most likely need heavy insulation and that would reduce capacity.

 

[Fwismoker]

Mmm... not trying to be argumentative here, trying to understand. Since the air is heated in a separate box in an offset and then drawn sideways, we aren't talking radiant heat, but simply the hot air and other gasses/particles. This is, in principle the same with charcoal (not arguing the qualities of the gasses).

Anyway, what are these "few exceptions" and why do you think they work?

It's all about the BTU's. A split fire is going to produce a crap load more BTU's than what you can with charcoal and of course less cost to feed the cooker splits than dump in bags of KBB/lump etc..

Exceptions are countless vertical cookers (smitty's boom shukaluka) as an example. I have a cooker that runs on either but again it's a vertical. The only offsets are semi efficient are vertical offsets like brinkmann etc... The heat is going sideways but then straight up and even that isn't close to as efficient as WSM, cabinets, UDS etc...

 

[SmittyJonz]

It works in verticals not so much in horizontals ( too much radiant heat loss off of Fire Box) -the main concern on verticals would be sufficient airflow and a firebox of 1/8"or better and a basket. A few guys have had success running their offset on charcoal but most find the eat up way too much charcoal and the cooks get costly. Better chances with smaller offset. Wood produces much more heat than charcoal.

If you were going to build an offset to do this I would build a T-shaped one with the firebox below in the center

 

[SmittyJonz]

This style can be Bi :




Or this:



Or this: