Wood Kiln - tangentially related to Heatermeter

[NateSebold]

Not really related to Heatermeter but I am stuck between communities with the question and you all are amazing so I thought I would pose it here.

So I would love to convert my UDS to a low volume wood drying kiln.

I built WBegg's SSR sous vide controller a while back: Seen Here

My UDS has a 1.5npt hole on the bottom

I was intially thinking of something like the tamale pot
(Basically getting a 20$ish heating element and screwing it right into the hole at the bottom of my UDS and then wiring it into my SSR Sous Vide)

First question (can these type of heating elements work when dry)

Then I thought of using a heat lamp (or 2 or 3) like in a terrarium or chicken coop
(Basically a 10$ light bulb and would need a ceramic light bulb socket and then wire that out of the hole into the SSR Sous vide)

Second question (would this light bulb be okay being turned off and on through the SSR/Heatermeter setup or would that just kill the bulb pretty quick)

I am only need like 150F degrees for like a couple of days (Probably the precision of the SSR/Heatermeter is not needed)

I plan on having the heating element on the bottom where the charcoal basket sits, then to load up wood on the three shelves on my smoker then a bit of exhaust fan on top.

I plan on lining the smoker with reflectix insulation for heat insulation.

Anybody taking any of their time to think this through would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jeff.Ro]

Not really related to Heatermeter but I am stuck between communities with the question and you all are amazing so I thought I would pose it here.

So I would love to convert my UDS to a low volume wood drying kiln.

I built WBegg's SSR sous vide controller a while back: Seen Here

My UDS has a 1.5npt hole on the bottom

I was intially thinking of something like the tamale pot
(Basically getting a 20$ish heating element and screwing it right into the hole at the bottom of my UDS and then wiring it into my SSR Sous Vide)

First question (can these type of heating elements work when dry)

Then I thought of using a heat lamp (or 2 or 3) like in a terrarium or chicken coop
(Basically a 10$ light bulb and would need a ceramic light bulb socket and then wire that out of the hole into the SSR Sous vide)

Second question (would this light bulb be okay being turned off and on through the SSR/Heatermeter setup or would that just kill the bulb pretty quick)

I am only need like 150F degrees for like a couple of days (Probably the precision of the SSR/Heatermeter is not needed)

I plan on having the heating element on the bottom where the charcoal basket sits, then to load up wood on the three shelves on my smoker then a bit of exhaust fan on top.

I plan on lining the smoker with reflectix insulation for heat insulation.

Anybody taking any of their time to think this through would be greatly appreciated.

Water heater elements would be a bad idea. They would burn up because the air wouldn't conduct heat away from the surface of the element as fast as water would.

The infrared would not be good at heating all the surfaces of the wood. Think lizard on a rock, the infrared lamp mainly heats the surfaces that are exposed to infrared waves with minimal convection. The upper pieces wouldn't be exposed to the source of heat.

I think a recirculated hot air system would be the best. Although all you will get out of any plug in heaters is around 1500 watts. I could figure a quick heat loss for a 150 deg barrel becasuse I'm not sure how much power this thing will take. That would be where I would start out at. Let me do some figuring.

 

[NateSebold]

I decided to go with a shop lamp with a heat bulb like for a terrarium. I lined the inside with Reflectix insulation. And then some on the lid on the outside. It holds 170-190 even in the 20s at night in the Vermont Winter. I took my microdamper and turned it around to vent out moist air but that pulled cool air in through tiny gaps in lid and left me in the 120s for temps..

Anyway I had someone out from the USDA to inspect it and they needed to see logs so I pulled up my heatermeter GUI up and showed the woman and she said what is this temp drop here ... And I said we just opened it up to inspect and the system is that sensitive... She was impressed.

Anyway I can't fit much wood in my UDS at a time and I didn't really use the heater meter for anything besides temp logging... But I now have a certified kiln dried wood operation.