I joined up here for some insight into what I am going to be building. First off I am a little crazy in that I can turn junk into treasure and I can turn the impossible into the possible. A friend of mine runs a fab shop and had a couple of leftover hunks of steel that he passed on to me. These are two sticks of 12" x 8" x 1/2" thick box tube that are 6' long each. The plan is to make a dedicated rib smoker for 8 racks of baby backs out of this material. I have read all the calculators and know my opening sizes. I have also test burned the tubes and I can get smoke to flow twice as far as it needs to flow.
This smoker will end up on a trailer either cross ways over the axle or running front to back....I have not decided on that yet. The two hunks of steel weigh 750 lbs as is, so it's a beast.
Let's get into the nuts and bolts here....basic design is two reverse flow smokers back to back or a vertical smoker if you will. I should be able to cook on one side only, if I only build one fire, and block the fb to cc opening on the cold side. Most times I will cook on both sides. There will be no openings in the tube other than the air intake on the bottom side and the stack on the top. I may or may not run a plenum on the stack. I will have individual end caps for each tube to access the fire box's and the cook chambers. Very little welding will be needed as the two halves will mate up with a single bolt on the inside at each end with the fb/cc openings being cut internally and sealed together when it bolts up. The air intake and stack will be bolted on as well with flanges.
Here are the chunks stacked the way I want them so the fire box is tall and the cook chamber is wide....
Here is the working drawing of how it will be.......
Here is the drawing on the steel.....
Here it is with a test smoke rolling through the entire length of the tubes and crossing back out the same end......
What do the experts say? Am I too crazy here? I know it will flow and I know it will get hot so a small fire will be key. I plan on running charcoal. A pre- fire to warm up the steel will most likely have to happen as it took about an hour for a small fire to warm it up evenly. The cooking chamber inside dimensions are only 7" high by 11" wide.....that will limit the food size to get good air flow. I also plan on setting a drippings tray on each end of the fire box to catch anything that drips from up top into the bottom. With a very small fire in the one end of the fb and having the smoke travel 12' to get out the top, the cc temps at one hour directly above the fire were the same as the smoke temp on the opposite end so I believe temp control will be fairly even across the tube even when the smoke runs half the distance of my test.
interesting idea good luck I hope you can get it dialed in.
