I just think no one has tried it. I will tell you this, for a side firebox design you are heating the air and the combustion products which are then moving through cook chamber. I do not believe you would have enough btu's to bring the cook chamber and the firebox to temp. a standard pellet smoker style burner set up is only 19,000 to 36,000 btu's depending on the speed of the auger motor and the size and style of the auger etc.
a generally accepted value of BTU's / pound of seasoned wood (of course this varies depending on species, moisture content, and any number of things) is 10,870 BTU's/h
so this being said one 1/4 split is maybe 4 pounds??? (I did not weigh it- I'm guessing lol) that is 40,000 BTU's/h...
for a 250 gallon propane tank set up I am guessing you would need maybe a 90,000 btu burner? this is all off the top of my head but i would think it is perty close.
Hmmmm, let me see what kinda crazy idea I can come up with now......
Jus eliminate the firebox and put the drive unit straight into the CC under the baffle.... smokin johnny is done that way .... an dfrom what BIll tells me - it's real stingy on pellets too ....
And on the eighth day God created barbecue …. because he DOES love us and he wants us to be happy.
Current smokers: Egor (trailered RF) and Easybake (tabletop pellet drive)
The cooker I have now has the fire in the cook chamber and I don't think it gets even enough heat. I can however run a single burner in a 3'x6' chamber and it will get to 400 degrees. I am using a traeger controller but a bigger auger and a more forced style burn box. The last one I built used the fan out of a house heating pellet stove to feed a 1" pipe of forced air into the burn box. It would also be much easier to clean up with a seperate fire box.
I'll go get some pics in a bit. I have about 50lbs of elk meat on the counter getting ground for burger and then fire up the smoker for salami next week....ummmm
Smoker pics, you can see both fireboxes here, 4" square tube with the auger in one side, 45 deg burner plate inside with 25 or so 1/8" holes drilled in a grill pattern. 1" blackpipe air feed in the bottom. In another pic you can see the fan and both auger motors.
Attachments
Firebox with ignigter attached to the traeger control board.
This shows both auger motors and the fan on the right side, it feeds both air tubes.
so are you using the factory style 1 rpm auger motors and the sliding board style tube to feed the pellets to the burn pots?
Is the burner plate a solid plate from end to end with the holes drilled in it?
They are 1 rpm motors but the flight(auger pitch) is different than traeger and almost full auger tube dia as opposed to a lose screw in a traeger................ie forced fed
Augers Unlimited, 6103801660. I called about 20 places before I found a place that would sell me a "little bit" and I have about 10 feet left after building my grill. I think that minimum order was 20 feet. I got 1.75 dia 2" pitch, 3/4 id out of A36 steel.