First build attempt starts Tomorrow! Need help

[Pennywise]

I've been keeping an eye on yours. I'm ready to see how your square doors turn out.

I will probably be cutting the doors in about 2 weeks. Its been one of those years...wife wants to move, 2 kids in college, still doing cub den leader and baseball coach...I have 0 extra time and 0 extra money.

[motoridr09]

And i thought i was busy with just a newborn and 1 year old haha. Yeah you have alot on your plate....... smokers tend to get out on the back burner when that happens haha

[Pennywise]

Yeah, and I'm building it at my Dad's house...he has all the cool toys and garage space to do it. He lives about 30 minutes away, so its hard to pop in for just a couple hours and get stuff done when time does come up. By the time you drive there, get everything out, work for a couple, put stuff up and drive home you need a 4 hour window...LOL

Either way it will get done. I think I'm going to forgoe the warmer box until later on...its not like I can't add it later.

[Pennywise]

OK first error I see in my calcs....I didn't add for the doors in the pit calculator. I built my FB based on a 440 gal size.

My question is...can I repair this by making the throat opening from FB to CC slightly larger? And how would I figure this? I need some of you to drop some BTU's on me.

Here's a link to the pit calc with the numbers I've been going off of. I will get the measurements of the door opening this morning sometime.

Link to BBQ Pit Calculator

[motoridr09]

Idk a whole lot about btus but maybe insulating the firebox would help... or i could be wrong and one of the experts will give you the right answer

[Pete Mazz]

I took the liberty to write some online calculators dedicated to smoker building.

http://www.smokerbuilder.com/forums/vie ... =87&t=4426

Hope they help.

[Pennywise]

I took the liberty to write some online calculators dedicated to smoker building.

http://www.smokerbuilder.com/forums/vie ... =87&t=4426

Hope they help.

Thanks Pete! I will get it and post it as soon as I get the cubic inches.

[Pennywise]

I get NaN for an answer....gah!

[Pete Mazz]

Uh Oh! Post your numbers and I'll see if I can fix it.

[Pennywise]

OK. At first I thought it was cause I was putting half inches as like 26.5...I went through and rounded so it would be even numbers still to no avail. This is the order they go in:

26
22
3
21
58
37
30
30
11

[Pete Mazz]

Fixed it! The 3" side was throwing it off. I used a different formula for part of it and it's working now.

Your tank volume is 98820.27 sq in. for those numbers. You should be able to use decimals so LMK.

Thanks!

[Pete Mazz]

Looking at the pics of your build you'd get closer to actual volume by adding the right end length to the squared section. The calculator assumes the door section is just past the curved ends or, in your case, at the end of the cut-off on the right.

The adjusted numbers give me ~103,000 cu. in.

[Pennywise]

K so what number should I plug into the calculator to re-figure my throat opening? 98820.27, or 103,000?

And thanks you so much for taking the time to assist me with this. Im feeling a bromance stirring. Just sayin.

[Pete Mazz]

You used:

26
22
3
21
58
37
30
30
11

I changed it to:

26
22
3
21
69
37
30
30
0

to get 104,103 cu in. so firebox should be 34,700. Throat opening should be 285 sq in. That would be a half moon opening 11.5" high and 34.25" across for a 37" diameter tank.

Bromance? Better cook me dinner first, smoked of course!

[Pennywise]

Dang, that makes sense. I need to get a vacuum sealer so I can mail out all the pulled pork Ima owe when this is done!

[Pete Mazz]

No hurry. Sunday is gonna be smoked turkey, ribs, chuck roast, ABTs, sausage....and hot dogs for the kids!

[Rodcrafter]

What time should I be there???????

[Pete Mazz]

3:00! I'll save a hot dog for ya!!!

[Pennywise]

Photo's of FB being built as promised:



My son getting into the action with the plasma:







Its now all welded and 4 of the sides are done including the opening for the breather. Going to hopefully finish and mount this coming weekend.

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

[Pennywise]

OK we spent last Saturday being productive. Got the FB mounted, and the end put on for the CC.










And Mother's Day wouldn't be complete without some ribs! Got my tuner plates in from BBQsmokermods.com and tested em with 4 slabs of babybacks





And what a difference it made!! Hard to tell, but both sides are at 225 with no prompting from myself..hehe.

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

Nice looking trailer build. One question. What's the reason you didn't make your door opening bigger?

[Pennywise]

Originally we were gonna put a warming cabinet on it, so the exhaust would have to go out the top. Because of the sheer size of it (8") we left a 11" gap for it. Its the same gap at the front (before the bubble end). The door opening is 29"x58", so it was made to have 29"X29" doors. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it will be nearly 5 foot long, and 3 levels of racks.

[motoridr09]

Nice progress. It looks like you have it set up to have good balance. Are you going to put anything else on the trailer?

[Pennywise]

Nice progress. It looks like you have it set up to have good balance. Are you going to put anything else on the trailer?

Yeah I plan on putting a grill of some sort up front( haven't decided what shape) and the wood basket will probably be in the front as well. Plan on putting a sink, a spice holder on the backside, and trays all the way around it.