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Homemade Refrigerator Smoker

by William

Your site is great!

I fashioned a smoker out of an old 9 cubic foot all metal refrigerator. At first I fired it with wood, then I tried a two-burner electrical hotplate, now I would like to try a one or two-burner propane stove/grill. The others required too much attention to keep the temperature up.

Do you think a grill that produces 14,000 btus (7,000 for each burner) would suffice to maintain the necessary temperature (250 degrees F) in a well-insulated, 9 cubic foot cubicle when the temperature outside is 20 degrees F or higher? If not, what do you think I would need.

Thank you,

William

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Homemade Refrigerator Smoker

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Oct 02, 2009
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by: Bill

Your propane grill, at 14,000 BTUs, puts out about the same amount of heat as an electric heating element of a little over 4000 watts.

I'm guessing that your double hotplate was 750 watts, or maybe 1000 watts per burner. So your electric hotplate, at 1500 to 2000 watts, was putting out between 5100 to 7000 BTUs of heat.

Your propane stove will give you double the heat output, but you'll have to consider ventilation. The fire needs fresh air coming in and an exhaust. And that will cause some heat loss.

Hopefully this information will be helpful to you.

The temperature is normally higher at the top of a smoker, so next time you might try checking the temperature at different heights if you haven't done that.

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