Just made a deal on an older New Braunfels smoker and am pumped about cleaning her up and doing some mods to turn her into a reverse flow. Had the mini van today and it's too dirty and big to get in there, so have to 35 miles back with the truck to pick it up.
When I lifted the lid I could see the grates were maybe an inch above the opening to the fire box and the opening looked larger than necessary.
My question is this. How much distance is optimal between the rf plate and the cooking grates? It's gonna be interesting to see if I can drop the rf plate down far enough and still keep enough opening to the fb. I do want to make the rf plate full length and put in a drain. Also want to copy Ribwizard's design of adding a semicircle to the end of the smoker to curve the smoke/heat back to the CC instead of having the RF plate stop short of the end of the CC
The grates can't be raised as they are at the very edge of the door opening. Looks like I might need to unbolt the fb and clean and seal it to the cc as I can see daylight between the two, but other than surface rust she is pretty darned solid. Stopped at Wally World to pick up some paint for it and looked at the smokers they had there. Those things are thin as stovepipe metal!!!!
Update:
The grate sets less than half an inch higher than the FB opening, so is there a critical, or optimum distance from the bottom of the grates to the RF plate if I mod this thing? If I don't do an RF mod, I will at least fashion a deflector plate to go over the FB opening. Any recommended length on that? I'm thinking about a foot should do ok, but need the input of experienced folks please.
I have used the search feature, but can't find anything that mentions a good distance between the two
Thanks for any input
When I lifted the lid I could see the grates were maybe an inch above the opening to the fire box and the opening looked larger than necessary.
My question is this. How much distance is optimal between the rf plate and the cooking grates? It's gonna be interesting to see if I can drop the rf plate down far enough and still keep enough opening to the fb. I do want to make the rf plate full length and put in a drain. Also want to copy Ribwizard's design of adding a semicircle to the end of the smoker to curve the smoke/heat back to the CC instead of having the RF plate stop short of the end of the CC
The grates can't be raised as they are at the very edge of the door opening. Looks like I might need to unbolt the fb and clean and seal it to the cc as I can see daylight between the two, but other than surface rust she is pretty darned solid. Stopped at Wally World to pick up some paint for it and looked at the smokers they had there. Those things are thin as stovepipe metal!!!!
Update:
The grate sets less than half an inch higher than the FB opening, so is there a critical, or optimum distance from the bottom of the grates to the RF plate if I mod this thing? If I don't do an RF mod, I will at least fashion a deflector plate to go over the FB opening. Any recommended length on that? I'm thinking about a foot should do ok, but need the input of experienced folks please.
I have used the search feature, but can't find anything that mentions a good distance between the two
Thanks for any input
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