Double reverse flow Chargriller... Not what I anticipated

[quixote]

 

[SmokinAl]

How's it cook?

 

[quixote]

Al, Thanks for asking.

Cooks fine, holds temp ok, but...

I'm new to the forum and I think I have a misstep in how I posted the rest my story.

I've been reading and learning quite a bit from everyone here so I did a couple of mods to a Char-griller I bought at Lowes last month.

In the bottom chamber, I placed a couple of angle iron rails to shelf a tuning plate and placed a baffle at the intake to flow all the heat across to the left.  I have two layers of 1/4" ceramic tiles laid atop the baffle to act as a heat sink and help evenly radiate from the bottom.

Rather than relocate the stack, I thought I had a great idea to simply add another baffle at the roof to double reverse the smoke flow out the factory stack.  My logic was that the added space would also serve as a warm insulator to keep heat in.

The problem is that it won't draft in a naturally aspirated mode. With my Digi-Q and a 10cfm  blower, 225F is doable, but it won't maintain at 250F.  ( Kingsford  and some maple wood mixed.)

With a 35cfm it will maintain at 350F.

I think I'm going to undo this mod and move the stack to the right side to have a single reverse flow. 

Q