Reverse Flow Smoker. Concept?

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shea561

Fire Starter
Original poster
Dec 31, 2009
57
10
Palm Beach Gardens
Hi all. I'm a little new to the scene. Was checking out the smoker builds on here and came across the Reverse Flow Smokers section. Now I've tried to research and tried to examine the pictures of the builds to try and grasp the concept of the reverse flow smoker but I can't really grasp it.

I've notice the exhaust stacks are on the same side as the heat box but that's all I've noticed from the pics. No one really has any good pics on the the internals (where I assume the concept is applied).

Any who can some please help me understand how a reverse flow smoker works and the benefits of one?

Thanks in advance for all the help.

-Shea
 
New guy here also... but I will throw my take on things in here.


Reverse flow keeps the heat under a plate that runs the lenght of the smoking chamber. This allows the heat to warm the plate and force the heat/smoke to the opposite end of the chamber as the fire box. When it comes out from under the plate, the flow reverses direction and the smoke travels across the meat, then out through the stack.
 
Ah ha. That makes since.

Would like to know what benefit this is as I don't see one yet. Seems to me like it would just take longer to get up to temp....

I'm pretty sure I might be missing something still.
 
Depending on how you design it. Even heat, heating indirectly, cooler smoke across the meat. Almost no chance of creosote forming (depends on who designed it) better utilization of fuels. Control on depth of smoke. Using a convex plate instead of concave will create even heating at all sections of the cooking chamber.

Those are the engineering advantages.

Plus you get to watch people as they stare at the stack directly above the firebox and tell you your not very good at designing barbeques
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