Vent adjustment

Any type of purchased BBQ Pit.

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Strafer
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Vent adjustment

Postby Strafer » Tue Sep 03, 2013 1:14 pm

Is there any magic to adjustment of the intake (side of smokebox) and outlet (chimney) vents to achieve/maintain temperature? I figure you open the vent, you lose heat but get airflow. Thanks. Also interested in using a welding blanket and/or rock wool for insulation. :joker:
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby CypertJ » Tue Sep 03, 2013 2:02 pm

Exhaust wide open, and leave it open. Control your heat with the intake, and make small adjustments. Give the pit about 30-45 mins after making adjustments to level out

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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby BluDawg » Tue Sep 03, 2013 2:41 pm

Strafer wrote:Is there any magic to adjustment of the intake (side of smokebox) and outlet (chimney) vents to achieve/maintain temperature? I figure you open the vent, you lose heat but get airflow. Thanks. Also interested in using a welding blanket and/or rock wool for insulation. :joker:

I take it you using a Offset Stick burner. Run the chimney damper WFO control the heat with the intake vent. An off set is meant to burn sticks not charcoal and you cook in a Zone much like the oven in your house. The oven in your house lets say you set the temp to 350 it will run up to 380 kick off drift down to 340 and kick back on and repeat the cycle. A stick burner works the same way I like to cook at 300 any where between 275-325 is good. When the temp drops to 275 I add a Split it will go up to 325 or so and fall back over 45 min then I repeat the process. these are not Set & Forget for hours type Pits they need attention on a regular basis. If you want S&F then you need a UDS a WSM or an insulated cabinet type pit or even one of the many Pellet Poopers on the market, but wheres the fun in that.
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Strafer
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby Strafer » Thu Sep 05, 2013 4:48 pm

Exhaust wide open? Seems like you wanna choke her down a bit to keep the smoke in? I admit I'm a novice. I have generally kept the chimney cracked about 1/4 of the way open, sometimes more, and varied the intake vent, closed down a bit when fire too hot, wider open when fire needs a boost ....
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby jayzi » Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:31 pm

Strafer wrote:Exhaust wide open? Seems like you wanna choke her down a bit to keep the smoke in? I admit I'm a novice. I have generally kept the chimney cracked about 1/4 of the way open, sometimes more, and varied the intake vent, closed down a bit when fire too hot, wider open when fire needs a boost ....


I had MUCH better results running exhaust wide open on my stick burner! Those days are long gone... since good ole' UDS has come into my life!
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby BluDawg » Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:48 pm

:banghead:
Strafer wrote:Exhaust wide open? Seems like you wanna choke her down a bit to keep the smoke in? I admit I'm a novice. I have generally kept the chimney cracked about 1/4 of the way open, sometimes more, and varied the intake vent, closed down a bit when fire too hot, wider open when fire needs a boost ....

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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby Red Farr » Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:06 pm

If you feed raw or unlit wood or charcoal to a farrbox you're gonna have to leave the exhaust vent open, that stink'll ruin your BBQ, you gotta get it out , smart money says burn that kindling down to a red hot farr, feed that to yur stick.
The phrase “smoked food” doesn't mean produce smoke, it means the flavor of smoke is in the food coming from/off the red hot farr you've engineered by reducing raw kindling to something usable to produce A+++ BBQ In a nutshell, if you mix up a cake put it in the oven and leave the door open , it won't cook, you gotta be smarter than that,comon.
Control the temp with the exaust vent, make an oven outta that stick.
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby k.a.m. » Fri Sep 06, 2013 6:33 am

If you are running an offset with an over sized exhaust then trimming your temps with the exhaust damper is a preferred method. Most offsets do not run over sized exhausts and I have never seen a store bought smoker that has one usually they are undersized in my opinion. These cookers should always be run with the exhaust wide open and control your temps with the intake for a cleaner burning fire.
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby egghead » Fri Sep 06, 2013 9:45 am

BluDawg wrote: If you want S&F then you need a UDS a WSM or an insulated cabinet type pit or even one of the many Pellet Poopers on the market, but wheres the fun in that.
[/quote]

Or you can run with the big dogs and get a flower pot - set it and forget it :mrgreen: :laughing7:
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby Strafer » Fri Sep 06, 2013 12:30 pm

Trying to post a pic of my grill in smokin' action.
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby Red Farr » Fri Sep 06, 2013 2:26 pm

That's quite a picture, not sure what you want, so going back to yur original post. Seal those leaks so you can see where yur at, step one to temp control. Is there a thermometer in there somewhere if not you need one. What yur burning for fuel is making what's called a dirty farr. All that soot, tar, creosol is ending up on yur food. Consider burning that kindling down to red hot coals before adding it to the farr box. I made a reply 2 or 3 up about this , good luck with it ... Red
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby Strafer » Fri Sep 06, 2013 3:43 pm

Well dang it Red how can you have smoky taste without no dang smoke?
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby Red Farr » Fri Sep 06, 2013 8:54 pm

The smoke taste comes from using hardwood,briquets, lump or logs.You gotta burn it down to coals.

When all is ok do a test run, no meat, see how much charcoal it takes to get the temp you need.

BluDawg has a post somewhere with one of Texas best BBQers, watch the videos.
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby k.a.m. » Sun Sep 08, 2013 12:17 pm

Strafer, what you should be looking for is thin blue smoke to just a heat signature coming out of your exhaust. Using wood splits in the firebox is perfectly fine there is no need in burning your wood down to coals before adding them to the cooker. Fire management along with learning your cooker is needed for burning a clean fire. You want a small hot fire in your firebox to maintain steady temps, you can also preheat your splits on top the firebox for faster ignition of the new split. Also when you add a new split leave the firebox open for a few seconds to make sure your next split catches and does not smolder.
This is what thin blue smoke looks like leaving a cooker.
I hope this helps. :D
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Re: Vent adjustment

Postby cutt » Sun Sep 08, 2013 1:26 pm

IMO I would seal leaks, keep smokestack wide open, control temp with damper. keepin the stack wide open all the time to prevent too much smoke in food causing you to burp smoke.

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