Self insulating my fire box

[Finatic]

I believe if I keep my cook chamber uninsulated, I shall see no difference in variation (in the cook chamber) than I would without an insulated firebox.[/quote]

You might be right. I know 2 guys who cook in 20-30 cook-offs a year who both have walk on trailer rigs and both went to an insulated firebox (mainly to reduce the ambient temperature on the trailer). Both have said they had to learn how to use their pits again as it completely changed how it cooked. I don't cook with an insulated firebox on my offset. I'm just thinking when you add insulation to your firebox it will reduce the amount of heat loss through your firebox (internet chatter says roughly 50%) and that heat has to go somewhere it will naturally affect the temperatures in the cooking chamber.

Let us know how it works out.

[Jamie]

This is very good topic. I will have an engineer at my plant run the calculations on how much heat loss occurs from the exterior of carbon steel. We have hot oil systems all over the plant and it runs at 450 deg F. We have to insulate them to minimize the heat loss from equipment to equipment. There has to be a calculation as to how fast the heat dissipates. I will have him run it using multiple thicknesses and see what comes up.