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Firebox Size - How Big? Building Homemade Smoker

by jason l
(jefferson city, missouri)

hi my name is jason. i am building an offset smoker pit along with a friend, its our first attempt and i have my design figured along with the dimensions. its 3'x5' WxL, and the cooking area for the racks is 28" tall. the chamber to carry the smoke from the firebox to the opposite side is 20"depthx36"width and im leaving a five inch gap at the end for the smoke to travel. the chimney is on the firebox side about half way up in the cooking area. i was going to make my firebox 2' square. now i was told by a guy that builds large charcoal grills and only two smoker pitts that my firebox is to large? is my fire box to big or small and the chamber that the smoke is going to travel is it to big? also there is a 10" overlap between the smoker and firebox, how big should I make the opening all 10" or smaller? thanks for reading and i really look foward to hearing from you. i would like to have it built before july 11th, my first sons first birthday! oh yeah a big BBQ planned

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Firebox Size - How Big? Building Homemade Smoker

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starstarstarstarstar 		Flue not flew
by: Anonymous

Flue not flew or fluke
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		That's a Reverse Flow Smoker...
by: BBQ Mike

Hi Guys, sounds like you are building a "Reverse Flow" smoker with an offset firebox. It's a fantastic design for making great BBQ. Your fire box sounds like it would be big enough for the size cooking chamber that yuou will have. But a rule of thumb that goes for a lot of things is "Bigger Is Better"... You can always control the temp with your dampers... By the way, it's a "flew" not a "Fluke" as someone put it.

Good Luck,

BBQ Mike





Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Aspiring Pittmaster
by: Anonymous

Why are you putting your fire box on the same side as your fluke? I am thinking about putting my fire box on the same side but putting a sub-floor so that the smoke has to travel to the opposite side of the floor before traveling back to the fluke, for added smoke and heat distribution.
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Homemade Smoker Firebox Size
by: Bill

It sounds like too large of a firebox sucks the heat out of a smaller fire before it can enter the smoke chamber. Interesting.
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		FIREBOX SIZE
by: Bacnars Backyard BBQ

Jason,

I just finished one that is about the same size. It over smokes the meat. Mine firebox is 24X24X24 and has a hard time maintaining a consistant temp without a huge fire. I believe 18X18X24 OR 16X16X24 is more than sufficent. I will let you know how mine works after the modification.

Butch
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		firebox
by: Anonymous

I have heard the firebox should be 30% of the main smoker!

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