44" Masterbuilt Propane

[norcal911]

Greetings. I have some questions about my new 44. I gutted it, threw away the factory chip pan, got a cast iron grate and cast iron pan, put a door gasket in and I'm in the process of welding a chimney in and insulating the box. I'm going to line the interior with mineral wool and cover that with 18ga steel on the inside. I also trashed the factory water pan and went with a full size chaffing water pan. 

The factory exhaust is a joke, its not even on the top, its on the back. I measured it up and came up with the area of the exhaust and I'm going to put two 2.5" diameter x 10" long smoke stacks on the top. 4" was actually a comparable number to the area of the factory one but I wanted the adjustability of 2 chimneys and I though it might look cool with two stacks coming up. I'm also going to weld the chimneys in proud so they actually stick into the box an inch or two to hopefully get the smoke/heat swirling and exitting slowly instead of just flowing right out. 

Anyway, the area by the burner is quite open and I'm thinking it is more than enough area to allow sufficient air in to keep the burners running clean, even at full throttle. Does anybody know why there are two pinwheel vents, one on each side of the cabinet? On Masterbuilt's website, it doesn't show those vents in the pictures. Are those vents new? Are they necassary? I'm thinking not, due to the mostly open area by the actual burners. My problem is, I just want to insulate over them and pretend like they are not there, I just don't want my cabinet starved for air.

Engineering those vents or boxing them in (whatever?) in a way that they pass through the insulation yet still work is a little more cutting and welding than I want to do on this project. Any thoughts? Any critique? Thank you

 

[SmokinAl]

I'm not familiar with your smoker, but on my Smoke Vault I need to keep the bottom vents open or it will starve for air.

As a matter of fact I keep them open all the way all the time.

Al

 

[norcal911]

Thanx for the input SmokinAl, my only counter point would be that my chimneys will hopefully make it draw well enough through the open bottom where the burners are taht all will be well. That's my theory anyway. Anyone else?

 

[jokensmoken]

On my 40" masterbuilt propane there were no bottom vents and I found it not only starving g for air but had "hot spots" especially with a lot of rain k space covered with food. I assumed it was an air circulation problem.
I fabricated two vents very similar to the factory vent in the back and I stalled one on each side of the smoke chamber as close to the bottom as I could...I run these full open most of the time and it solved the issues.