90 degree elbow on a Gen 2.0 40 MES with a side vent

Surprised you haven't gotten any responses yet. I also have the side vent and I'm also interested in what the advantage is of the 90 deg. elbow. Hope someone chimes in.

I added one to my MES 30 side went and I "feel like" it draws better than it did before.  I have no scientific data to support that feeling though.

Lesk said:

 
I see a few posts for modifying my MES with a side vent with a 90 degree Elbow..does anybody have a opinion on this and what would be the advantage to this mod versus the original side vent? Just curious...

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I used it on my gen 2 when I had it


Works good

Richie

The advantage to the elbow is that once the vertical draw occurs - it will PULL smoke thru the smoker. The horizontal draw of smoke doesnt work so well because the tendency for smoke is to go UP and no sideways since its lighter than ambient air (Lacks humidity, so therefore lighter and wants to rise.) What you've given your smoke is the ability to behave correctly! Which is why they don't make them like that anymore!!

tjdcorona said:

 
The advantage to the elbow is that once the vertical draw occurs - it will PULL smoke thru the smoker. The horizontal draw of smoke doesnt work so well because the tendency for smoke is to go UP and no sideways since its lighter than ambient air (Lacks humidity, so therefore lighter and wants to rise.) What you've given your smoke is the ability to behave correctly! Which is why they don't make them like that anymore!!

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Yep!  And the taller the "smoke stack" or "chimney" you add, the better it'll work (up to a point).

You can even improve the "draw" on the top-vent MESs by adding a bit of vertical stack to their top vents, too.

As you heat air, it expands.  When it expands, its density is, naturally lower since the same number of air molecules are spread out over a larger volume.  This is the same reason hot air balloons can fly and even carry quite a bit of weight.

And here's something that blows most peoples' minds:  Humid air is lower density than dry air.  That's because the water molecules take up space that would otherwise be occupied by the molecules of the gasses that make up dry air.  Most of our air (78%) is nitrogen.  And the mass of a nitrogen atom is greater than the mass of a water molecule!

So humid air is "lighter" than dry air.  Its density is lower.  That's why pilots have a harder time taking off on a humid day than a dry day.  The worst is a hot, humid day!  Very low density air.

Like you say, having that vent on the side of the smoker isn't as good as having it on the top.  But adding an elbow, and then some "stack" to the top of it can improve the natural draw through the smoker.  You want a good chimney to help create a draft and pull air through the smoker.

I stuck a little stack (about a foot tall) on top of my top-vent smoker last night, and it really did increase the flow rate through the unit.