why the overwhelming #posts and/or popularity regarding RF smokers

[StorkQ]

Hi,

not to troll but to learn. Why are there sooo many posts about RF smokers compared to the other types? Is the reverse flow offset smoker the solution for everything? Does it guarantees winning? Or are there so many topics because there're a lot of issues?

I know that the subject has been beat to death. But since there more practical folks than hipsters, here at SmokeBuilder, I hope to learn some new insights.

I understand the principle. But doesn't it create a hotspot at end of the baffle just like a regular offset without baffle and/or tuning plates at the FB side? What's the difference with some well placed tuning plates in a regular offset?
I've come up with two possible explanations for the "reverse flow offset smoker" popularity:

1. The baffle on the bottom provides nice radiation heat over almost the full length. The airflow provides heat via convection as well as smoke. The heat via convection will never be even but combined with the radiant from the bottom an even temperature is created in the CC. Smoke will distributed itself evenly.
2. It's in peoples mind. A regular offset smoker with tuning plates yields the same results. The tuning plates also provide radiant heat from the bottom. And the gaps in between provide a reasonable airflow throughout the entire CC.
3. It's far better because off...

My (possible wrong) concerns about the reverse flow design are:

• It limits the CC to a single temperature profile. With tuning plates one can create a hotter and colder side.
• When the baffle is welded (they usually are) it's very difficult the clean the area below.

Again I'm looking at this from an engineering standpoint and gourmet of course, not because it looks cool or whatever.
Looking forward to your opinions.

Thanks in advance.

[mp4]

Even temps is a positive atribute for the RF in my opinion. The BP also retains the drippings and flavors the meat as it steams off. Cleaning under th BP is unnecessary if there is a grease dam and drain valve installed. The meat is also protected from hot, direct heat from the fire box as well which prevents it from drying out.

Just my opinion...not that I'm biased at all! I do plan to build a mini gravity flow next.

[BitBucket]

StorkQ,

Great questions. I'm not going to try to convince you of what's better, because I imagine that's like inviting discussion on what brand of truck is better. I did deliberate these things with my own smoker. Here's how that turned out.

I've seen some commercial RF vendors claim the grease falling on the baffle plate and vaporizing 'adds flavor'. Some even claim that's an exclusive 'feature'. I dunno about that, but if it falls to the bottom of the CC it doesn't get the same opportunity to vaporize. Whether that's flavor you want or not I'll let you decide.

For my big RF build, I bought two sets of plans from smokerbuilder, one was a tuning plate and one a standard RF. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about which design I wanted to use. I went with a solid RF/baffle plate.

From a safety standpoint, having a (solid) welded baffle plate with a lip prevents grease and water from flowing straight into the firebox. A grease fire can make quick work of a wad of hard earned cash in meats. Water in the firebox can be equally as frustrating. I get enough moisture in the CC just from combustion/condensation to drain about 1/2 gallon out of the lower drain. Not quite as much as the BP drain, but water absorbs heat, which means more BTUs to run my cook. I like keeping that lower chamber as dry as I can.

Temp Control:
I do have predictable temp variance from top to bottom and left to right. Temps at the end away from the firebox on the lower racks is always lowest (after the smoker comes fully to temp and evens out)--I can manage cooking by moving food around to various zones in my cooker, AND I can control the variance by raising or lowering the end away from the firebox to speed up or slow down the passage of the smoke/heat, as well as using firebox intake and throat & stack dampers.

Cleaning:
I have drains both from the baffle plate and the bottom of the CC. I can put a long-handled scrub brush up inside the CC from the firebox end (not while theres a fire in it obviously) to scrub it down. Is it less easy to clean than a regular offset or tuning plate rig? No doubt. Is it impossible? No; but that lower area should never see a drop of food either. I'm mostly inclined to let the protective layer of soot keep corrosion down as long as it's not imparting a bad flavor, and just clean the baffle plate as needed.

Weight, warp, and work:
The plans I got that had tuning plates called for cutting a whole bunch of 1/4" rectangles and then adding 2" x 1/4" strap to the plates so they overlap and approximate a seal. That meant more materials expense, cutting, welding, and finish weight. 1/4" plate and strap is not immune to warping, so your plane of diversion plates may never seal up as tight as you want.

Transport and oops factor:
I live in a land of potholes and dirt roads. I couldn't figure out an elegant way to prevent the tuning plates from bouncing off the rails and ending up in the bottom of the CC during transport. Fishing out 11 to 20-ish lb plates of metal from a carbon-coated cook chamber at my destination didn't sound like a great use of my time. Also, ponder dropping one of the plates in the CC DURING a cook. Can you get it out without pulling the whole thing apart, when everythings at least 275 degrees? (without getting burned especially) and where will you put your food while you dive in? Will leaving it there change your cook, and how badly will you be screwed if it's not doing its job as intended?

Spirit of the Smoker and getting to eat on time:
I'm gonna get philosophical on you to close--consider the phrase, "If you're lookin' you ain't cookin'". If you're fiddling with tuning plates, you're losing heat and adding to your cook times. To me Q is about time and patience and subtlety, but the one thing I don't do is open the lid very often. In the end to me making big changes like moving tuning plates around just seemed contrary to the concept.

All this is just one guy's journey to a decision on which way to go, and I've only had a functional RF for a few years so add that consideration to my perspective. I've never cooked competition either, so maybe there's other factors I'm not aware of.

Just my long-winded $0.02,

Bb

[pr0wlunwoof]

Even temps is a positive atribute for the RF in my opinion. The BP also retains the drippings and flavors the meat as it steams off. Cleaning under th BP is unnecessary if there is a grease dam and drain valve installed. The meat is also protected from hot, direct heat from the fire box as well which prevents it from drying out.

Just my opinion...not that I'm biased at all! I do plan to build a mini gravity flow next.

I agree. I didn't realize the drippings flavored the meet until after I had cooked on mine. I think it makes a real difference especially with the sausage I have smoked the last two times. I have friends who don't really care for the sausage at the local butchers market, but after smoking it on my RF smoker they had no problem eating 4 pounds of it. I think it made a huge improvement on the flavor of the Italian sausage we use regularly.

[StorkQ]

Even temps is a positive atribute for the RF in my opinion. The BP also retains the drippings and flavors the meat as it steams off. Cleaning under th BP is unnecessary if there is a grease dam and drain valve installed. The meat is also protected from hot, direct heat from the fire box as well which prevents it from drying out.

Just my opinion...not that I'm biased at all! I do plan to build a mini gravity flow next.

@mp4, thanks for your time.
My main concern regarding cleaning were the combustion nasties like soot, creosote and tar. In the long run they only give a negative (flavor) contribution. Removing them underneath a welded baffle plate is difficult. A grease dam on the FB side is almost default and the grease on the other end is also difficult to forget.
I could make the BP removable by bolting it onto fully welded angle on the CC sides. And seal it with high temp silicone rtv.
Interesting suggestion you made regarding the vaporization of any drippings. That's indeed something that's much more efficient than with tuning plates.

Thank you for your input.

[Rodcrafter]

Both of my Rf cookers have tuning plates that never get moved. They act as if they are welded because the stuff sticks them down. I like to have options when it comes to playing with my toys. So I make things much more complicated than they have to be. However the popularity you see on this forum I believe comes fro the newness of RF design. The traditional offset, has been around forever it seems, then came some forms of tuning apparatus, plates or whatever that buffered the direct out pouring of heat and smoke into a CC. I really like mine, and I'm going to make a insulated GF cabinet soon I hope. I mean shoot I like the UDS I'll be smoking brisket on tomorrow too. So maybe I'm just a nut.

jm2cw

[StorkQ]

StorkQ,

Great questions. I'm not going to try to convince you of what's better, because I imagine that's like inviting discussion on what brand of truck is better. I did deliberate these things with my own smoker. Here's how that turned out.

@BB, first off all thank you for your valuable input. That might help a lot of other folks as well.
I indeed tried to avoid that kind of discussion. Very thorough planning you did, now I want to learn from that experience.

I've seen some commercial RF vendors claim the grease falling on the baffle plate and vaporizing 'adds flavor'. Some even claim that's an exclusive 'feature'. I dunno about that, but if it falls to the bottom of the CC it doesn't get the same opportunity to vaporize. Whether that's flavor you want or not I'll let you decide.

The plot thickens. My taste reference is Texan BBQ. Most (respectable) places have brick pits. Talking about temperature gradients!!! And vaporization of drippings??? The pitmasters over there would laugh their heads off if they read my musings. (The drippings just fall on the earth) Because I can't afford a truck of wood each month to fire my pit and some other practicalities the brick pit isn't an option. Given the excellent results on such extreme low tech I'm warned not to over complicate things.

Some users have already commented that drippings on the hot BP do contribute to the flavor. Water based drippings I agree but grease and sugar much less. Everything not water will usually emit a nasty burned smell when dripping on a hot surface.
My experience is with parilla grills not smokers so be patient with me. But the parilla grate is at an angle so that the drippings (mostly grease) gets drained away from the fire as quick as possible. That's not only done to prevent grease fires.

From a safety standpoint, having a (solid) welded baffle plate with a lip prevents grease and water from flowing straight into the firebox. A grease fire can make quick work of a wad of hard earned cash in meats. Water in the firebox can be equally as frustrating. I get enough moisture in the CC just from combustion/condensation to drain about 1/2 gallon out of the lower drain. Not quite as much as the BP drain, but water absorbs heat, which means more BTUs to run my cook. I like keeping that lower chamber as dry as I can.

I totally agree. How big is your smoker? And how much meat did you have in the smoker for that much condense? Do leave the drains open or do you periodically drain them?

Temp Control:
I do have predictable temp variance from top to bottom and left to right. Temps at the end away from the firebox on the lower racks is always lowest (after the smoker comes fully to temp and evens out)--I can manage cooking by moving food around to various zones in my cooker, AND I can control the variance by raising or lowering the end away from the firebox to speed up or slow down the passage of the smoke/heat, as well as using firebox intake and throat & stack dampers.

Interesting, I would have expected some variance between to and bottom. But the glossy marketing states that the RF smokers offers "unsurpassed equal temperature front to back".
What amount of variance do/can you observe?

Weight, warp, and work:
The plans I got that had tuning plates called for cutting a whole bunch of 1/4" rectangles and then adding 2" x 1/4" strap to the plates so they overlap and approximate a seal. That meant more materials expense, cutting, welding, and finish weight. 1/4" plate and strap is not immune to warping, so your plane of diversion plates may never seal up as tight as you want.

But that design almost is like a solid baffle plate. My understanding of the tuning plates was that they have increasing gaps between them from front to back.

Transportation is a non issue for me, but I drafted some bolts to clamp them down. And I wasn't really planning to adjust them during a cook but hopefully only initially.

"If you're lookin' you ain't cookin'", that's what I'm looking for: a very hands-off smoker. Hands-off not being: gas, pellets and/or electric.

The insulated RF vertical cabinet design seems like a very sensible solution. They don't require constant refueling, can be automated and are very fuel efficient. Again this what the glossy marketing promises, I don't have any experience with that style of smoker.

Again @Bb thank for your $0.02

[StorkQ]

@Rodcrafter, thank you for your input.

I can image that after some serious basting these plates are almost welded to the CC.
So in your opinion it's the "new" factor and possibly easy construction that makes the RF so popular (at the moment) not that it's a vast superior design. What size RF smokers do you have?

I don't know if I'm going very much offtopic now, mods let me know if i do.

I'm also thinking very much about a insulated cabinet style smoker. Whether it's RF, with or without heated waterpan and whether or not it's gravity fed is still point of research.

My objections against the GF style are, afraid of an expensive failure because lack of understanding and it's rather bulky. Also you need access on more than one side.
A cabinet with a FB can also burn for at least 8 hours before adding fuel. Some have a waterpan which MUST be filled so you always have a very humid CC which I don't like. That can be remedied by placing some insulation between the FB and the dripping pan. (It's no longer called a waterpan but is still has the same construction)
The RF question applies to both designs.

My current plan is to research whether its feasible to design a limited height version but wide. So that I can place two pans on a grate. Think of a countertop model.
A lot of designs are way too heavy and therefore expensive. No commercial kitchen appliance is made of 2x2 tubing. Less material also means less loss.
Perhaps we could brainstorm about a design?

I've most material for a 24"x40" offset smoker lying. It's easy and fun to build but leaves me with another hunk of steel and requires too much time when operating it. The smart side of me kept behind my keyboard and not in the shop at the moment.

[BitBucket]

I totally agree. How big is your smoker? And how much meat did you have in the smoker for that much condense? Do leave the drains open or do you periodically drain them?

I have a 30" dia. x 72" long that combined my favorite bits from two sets of plans I got on this site. I don't recommend that by the way (combining two sets), at least not as your first smoker: Design changes that seem small up front can bite you further down the project. Finished plans have that stuff worked out. I drained after the cook was over. and the cooker was cold. I wasn't expecting anything from the lower drain, which is why it stuck in my mind so vividly. The cook for that moisture was really small vs. the capacity of the cooker (just bigger than anything else I had) 2x briskets, and 2x pork shoulders, and a 5 qt. dutch oven of baked beans. I had three times that space in racks free though. The outdoor temp was cold by most q-ing standards though--only around 40 degrees. Such is the life of an Alaskan with a love for smokers. The cooler walls of the cook chamber are probably responsible for some extra condensation and I'm not entirely sure my wood was as dry as I might want. Again, I'm still a noob, but a meticulous one.

Interesting, I would have expected some variance between to and bottom. But the glossy marketing states that the RF smokers offers "unsurpassed equal temperature front to back".
What amount of variance do/can you observe?

Hmm terminology is a bear with common words--if I'm standing with my hands on my CC door handles, my firebox is on my right, and the baffle plate gap is on my left. viewtopic.php?t=4716 shows my build, if that helps. I seem to clock about not more than 10 degrees warmer top to bottom, and 5 degrees left to right--on analog door-mounted thermometers, so no promises on precision or accuracy. The interesting thing to me until I think about actual air flow and radiant heat transfer is that the warmer zones are not adjacent--upper left and lower right. I can raise the upper right temp by closing the stack damper (not saying I want to, but I can), and warm up the lower left by lowering the hitch end of the cc (or raising the firebox) to tune things out. I like having some variance though, so I can take a piece of meat that's stalled to a hotter zone if I'm concerned about finishing a cook on time.

But that design almost is like a solid baffle plate. My understanding of the tuning plates was that they have increasing gaps between them from front to back.

You can spread them out too. The plans I bought called for plates of varying widths between 6 and 12 inches that when all lapped together would span the whole CC like a BP. I think folks are calling it a 'hybrid' at that point, so maybe I'm mixing my terms? I'll defer to the seasoned builders on that.

The insulated RF vertical cabinet design seems like a very sensible solution. They don't require constant refueling, can be automated and are very fuel efficient. Again this what the glossy marketing promises, I don't have any experience with that style of smoker.

I've been working on a mini GF for almost a year, off and on, but never used one. Insulated has some serious appeal at latitude 64 N, since the season with liquid water is particularly brief. I finished up the welds on the firebox/fuel chute on Monday and picked up more tube steel to finish the frame today. My honest advice is: Run! One build is just never enough! Ever! You learn to master and love each build for its quirks, but you're always plotting to get a bit of something you're missing by building something new. That's kind of the point for me though--it's as much about the build as it is what comes out of it when its done, even though I really like Q, if that makes any sense.

Good luck in your deliberations, I think you have your brain thinking about the right things StorkQ, from there it's just about what makes most sense to you.

[Frank_Cox]

hahaha, WOW! and you guys thought I was bad!
you guys are trying to out BTU each other!....
Great thread tho!!!

[StorkQ]

@BitBucket, haha my would be smoker (24x40) almost dwarfs compared to yours: 74 vs 220 gallons (gross). If you've such small variances in temperature than my much smaller would have even less variance.

Given the environmental conditions I understand the condense in the CC.

I would love to constant build projects, but I can't have a yard full of projects. Even when they are finished. Selling stuff isn't something I like to do. You never get what it's worth. But I agree that I shouldn't contemplate about the various designs too long, however I only started this weekend.

I'll checkout your build.

[Pete Mazz]

It's much easier to start frustration free smoking on a RF as long as you follow the calcs. Offsets can be just as effective but require more tweaking. Tuning plate size: all equal or staggered in width? Tuning plate gaps: 1" gaps or 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" or graduated? All these effect the temperature inside the CC. You can, as has been said, have different temp zones but it still takes some tweaking to get what you want.