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Spent 4 hours trying to fix a hot spot on my offset smoker
Bought a cheap offset last spring from a guy near Austin. First few cooks were fine but then a hot spot showed up on the left side. Meat would burn there way faster than the rest. Tried messing with the firebox placement for an hour. No luck. Moved the baffle plate around for another two. Still no help. Finally took a laser thermometer and mapped the whole cook chamber. Turns out the stack height was off by like 3 inches. Adjusted it and now the temps are within 10 degrees across the grate. Wish I had checked that first. Anyone else deal with weird temp issues on an offset that took forever to figure out?
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kai_brown2323d ago
Man, I had the exact same headache with my cheap offset last year. Fought with a hot spot on the right side for weeks, swapped baffle plates, even tried different wood sizes. Ended up doing the same thing you did with the laser thermometer and found out my stack was sitting on a crooked stand, making it slope down a bit. Fixed that and the temps evened out way better. You're smarter than me for figuring it out in four hours, I wasted two whole weekends before I got a clue.
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... and honestly I used to be one of those guys who thought stack height was mostly just for show, like people overthink it. I figured as long as smoke was coming out the top you were good. But after chasing a hot spot on my own rig for way too long I finally caved and measured everything. Turned out my stack was a whole four inches lower than what it should have been on that cheap barrel. Once I jacked it up a bit the whole chamber evened out. I felt like an idiot for not checking that first, but now I tell everyone who buys a cheap offset to start with the stack before messing with anything else. It's wild how something so simple can throw the whole airflow off.
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