2nd HM Cook with Blower Fix Went Much Better

[MichaelJF]

My first cook with the HM didn't go so well. I figured out the 10cfm Auber blower setup I chose was basically just blowing cool air into my WSM instead of stoking the fire. This is because the blower attached to the vent above the fire and angles upward.

After seeing how the BBQ Guru WSM adapter blows air down under the fire I wanted to try to replicate that. All I did was attach a 90 degree copper pluming elbow inside where the blower goes through the vent to redirect the incoming air under the fire. It's not elegant but it actually worked very well, especially compared to the first cook.

I smoked a couple chickens and wanted to try it hot and fast over 300 degrees. At first I tried the max blower output limited to 40% based on what I read others had been doing but it struggled to get over 230 degrees. It probably makes sense on a low and slow cook but after a while I let it go to 100% and it then had no trouble getting up to my 315 degree set point and held there within about a 5 degree window. Based on how well it worked I'm considering just getting the Guru 10cfm fan and WSM adapter since it's a much cleaner setup than my crude fix.

Here's the setup.

 

[NickMV]

My first cook with the HM didn't go so well. I figured out the 10cfm Auber blower setup I chose was basically just blowing cool air into my WSM instead of stoking the fire. This is because the blower attached to the vent above the fire and angles upward.

I have a HM 4.1 w/6.5 CFM Auber blower, and have used it on both an 18" and 22" WSM. Glad to see you worked out a solution, but I can tell you right now that your issue has nothing to do with the angle, as I still to this day use no diverter or angled copper tubing. I'd have to say that you using a 10cfm is much more an issue. I keep my 6.5 CFM capped to 50% at most, sometimes less and get perfect control, esp when i still had my 18". The 22" is a tad harder to control but still does just fine.

Yes, you're blowing cool air in, but no, the angle isn't the issue (or at least isn't the primary issue). Sounds like you're also saying you set the max to 40% but I can't tell if you'd done that before. Also, your setup is crude? Hah!---- far from it, there's plenty of us that have silly-looking setups. A guru fan is a bit of a waste in money and carries an Apple-style markup where you're paying for the appearance and mainly the brand name. Tons of us are perfectly happy with the Auber cyclones.

One of these days I'm gonna create a true circular copper piping manifold for air to flow in evenly. Just my 2 cents....


PS. Here's another thing to consider and to play around with ----- consider the correlation between fan output and overall temperature at the grate. If you blow air in hard enough, you'll overcome the burning, however at the same time, there's a gray area where you can potentially be wasting charcoal by blowing too much air while still maintaining the correct grate temp. That being said, 20-40% sounds like a decent place to be in for a 10cfm.

 

[MichaelJF]

Thanks for the feedback. I posted about the trouble after the first cook with the HM and Auber 10cfm fan here. I tested max blower settings all the way down to 10% with the same results. The graph in that post shows the pit temp dropping every time the fan kicks on. It just dropped slower when the max blower setting was capped.

I'm not convinced that the angle of the air entering the pit wasn't the primary problem with the first cook since that was the only variable that I changed for the second cook. I assume whoever engineered the Guru WSM adapter figured the same thing out and designed it to blow down under the fire to address the issue. At this point I only have two cooks to reference though. Both cooks I only had the charcoal basket about half full. I'm not sure how much that would make a difference if any but when it blows down under the coals the amount of coals didn't really matter.

I'd be interested to know how much coal you typically fill the ring with and if you connect the Auber blower to one of the top or bottom vent holes.

Edit: Does anyone else have a WSM with an Auber blower that can give some feedback?