Sparky - Phase II

[noetic_toe]

This week saw a lot of progress on Sparky! On Sunday afternoon Shell and I picked up a couple loads of eight-inch cinder blocks. The boys had a good time helping us lug the blocks to the back yard -- it was a family affair

Comments

[jeffholton]

Wow. This sounds really interesting!

[gorski]

DD, when you did your design did you do any figuring as to how much heat gets channeled through that one open block? I'm curious... I know you're not a "whole hog" kind of guy but it seems like it may be hard to keep that uniformly at cooking temperature...

[noetic_toe]

I did. And I compared others' designs and working products. Serendipitously, it turns out that (per the calculator linked above) two 5.13" square holes are just what is required to move the heat through to the smoking chamber, given the size of the smoking chamber and the size of the fire box. Also, the air intake into the firebox and the chimney rig I came up with seem to be just what the spreadsheet ordered.

So, on paper, at least, it should work. I guess we shall see! I think it will be at least a week before I've assembled all the other bits and pieces needed to fire it up for seasoning and temperature testing.

One big variable is that I do not know how much time and fuel it will take to get this pile of concrete up to temp. Obviously, that will vary with ambient temperature.

If it doesn't work, I'll be tweaking.

[gorski]

Looks like quite a clever rig! Can't wait to see how she handles... though: do I need to donate parts of a pig that aren't shoulder for you to mix in?

[noetic_toe]

That is likely!