My Project

[classicrockgriller]

The only thing wrong I see doing that is if you decide to take OUT the slide in

electronics and install you own element then you will have cut a 5" hole alot

higher than you might want it.

[hal4uk]

Ok, I'll step in it. Reading through the threads I didn't see any mention of heat retention, such as insulated walls and such. So saying you need such and such watts to get to a certain point might not be as much as you think. My little Bro has a converted warming box made for rolling sheet tray cabinet and can get it to 240 degrees with one 1500 watt element. It is 72x36x36. It's an old Hobart and well built.

The boiling water in a pan example doesn't work because you are loosing heat to the air, put a lid on it and it will stay hotter with much less heat.

My head hurts......

Yup... insulation makes all the difference in the world...
I can hold 225 in the stretch with a TINY fire.

[pensrock]

I'm thinking put a smoke gen on it, vent and keep everything else like it is, run it and see where it goes.

I agree, put some bricks or something in to simulate a load and see what she can do.

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Water would probably be a better choice for a simulation.  Typical bricks or sand have about 2X the density of water, about the same as sand, but water has ~ 5X the heat capacity of bricks. Water has the highest volumetric heat capacity of common materials - meaning for a given volume it takes more heat to increase the temperature of water. Typical whole muscle meats are ~ 70% water.

Maybe a mix of 7 lbs water + 3 lbs sand to simulate ~10 lbs of meat ?

[HawkeyeSmokes]

I think pensrock's idea of using bricks should work fine.

The goal is to see how the cabinet will heat up with a simulated load after the vent is installed and the smoke generator in place.

Heat capacity of water would seem to pertain more to how fast the meat in the smoker comes up to your desired final IT.

If it gets to Rick's top temp of 180 OK, (With bricks, water, meat, cast iron) he should be good to go.

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Maybe.  But meat represents a heat sink , and I doubt bricks simulate well the heat sinking capacity of 70% water laden meat.  I think you would be able to more easily heat the cabinet with bricks than an equal weight or volume of meat.

[HawkeyeSmokes]

Maybe.  But meat represents a heat sink , and I doubt bricks don't simulate well the heat sinking capacity of 70% water laden meat.  I think you would be able to more easily heat the cabinet with bricks than an equal weight or volume of meat.

Sorry I said any thing!

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Rick,  this has been gnawing on my brain since last night, so I bit the bullet and went back to heat transfer basics, which for me is very rusty but I gave it a try anyways.  The issue in my mind is not about being able to get the cabinet hot enough - so long as your vent is anything reasonable with something like 1600-1800 watts of heating power you should be able to heat the heck out of the cabinet.  The issue is heat transfer to meat - how fast can you get the meat to heat up.

After playing with this for a while there are too many variables (like heat lost through venting) to be able to do much other than make an semi-educated guess or rough approximation, for which I concluded simple is best. 

I don't think it's about heat per unit volume (watts/cu ft) of the cabinet that is the issue, but heat per unit weight of meat.  At 1600-1800 watts of heating power (in the range of 5500-6100 Btu/hour), you have about 2.5-3X the heating power of an unmodified Bradley smoker.

That leads me to a best guess that your project will handle a load of ~ 3X whatever your comfortable with in a Bradley and do about as well or better (at smaller loads) for temp of the meat versus time .  Beyond that I suspect the performance (rate of heating the meat/sausage) will start to suffer.  How far you can go will depend upon what you want and your comfort with temp of meat versus time.

[smokeitall]

Rick,
As you know I have the exact same box as yours.  I will get some more pics taken and post them here for you.  The original heating element in mine is the same as yours.  I hooked that element up and it took a little over an hour to achieve 200 degrees.  After a little bit of modifying (20 minutes) I added a 1500 watt Brinkmann element.  This brought the 200 degreen mark down to 15 minutes.  I borrowed CRG's 5" hole saw and cut in a Bradley Smoke Generator which works awesome for this box.  In the top I cut a 4" hole and installed an adjustable slide for the opening, even though I have only left it fully open so far.

So for hooking up my electrical.  Luckily I have a 220V line in my garage, 40 amps on each leg.  I can run both of my elements on one of the legs with no problem.  I am sure yours would work with two 20 amp 120v lines from the box.  I tried a couple SSR's and melted them both because I didn't have the heat sink for them yet and got impatient.  Now I installed an Allen Bradley Contactor (4 pole).  I can send you one of these if you want, just let me know.  Mine did not come with a blower so I am not running one yet, I may try covering the elements and installing a blower, not sure yet.

I only ever plan to do sausage in this box but if I have to do pulled pork or somethign that requires 250 degrees for a big gathering I am confident this box will do the job for me.

These pics are before some more mods that I have done, and I still have a bunch left, but its useable now.  I have done 50lbs of summer sausage and 10lbs of snack sticks with no problem.






SIA

[NePaSmoKer]

Yup Scott

Thats what i have to the "T".................Nice smoker  ;D

Someone before i got it wired it all from 220 to 110? Why i dont know.

I'm going to use a digital smoke gen and have the shroud and adaptor for the hook up. Going with a back wall slide vent so i dont get any black rain issues.

I got the 5" hole hog BTW and TY. I will get it back home as soon as i get the hole cut.

[Keymaster]

Ive repaired a few of those units and all the ones I have worked on are 120 Volts. The biggest problem is loose spade connectors, if they get loose the amp draw is so high it fries the wiring at the connectors. They get loose at the schools because they wheel the hot carts from the kitchens to the Gyms where all the kids eat and the cracks in the side walks kill them. I don't work on those much anymore.

[ronbeaux]

So. It's just a matter of a preventative maintenance program to make sure the connections are secure and you are good to go. ;)

[Keymaster]

So. It's just a matter of a preventative maintenance program to make sure the connections are secure and you are good to go. ;)

Well said Ronbeaux  :)

[classicrockgriller]

Yup Scott

Thats what i have to the "T".................Nice smoker  ;D

Someone before i got it wired it all from 220 to 110? Why i dont know.

I'm going to use a digital smoke gen and have the shroud and adaptor for the hook up. Going with a back wall slide vent so i dont get any black rain issues.

I got the 5" hole hog BTW and TY. I will get it back home as soon as i get the hole cut.

I think maybe Chris wants to use it after you get thru.

Check with him before you send it back.

[smokeitall]

Hey Rick I am using my elements with 120 Volts.  I am using one leg of the 220V line, each leg is a 40 amp 120V.  This is just single phase 220 so it just uses two 120 Volt lines to get 220.  From the circuit breaker to the garage its 8 gauge (red 120V, black 120V, white Neutral)

I thought about using the 220V heater that I have but its heating so well I probably won't upgrade unless one of my 120V elements goes bad.
SIA