Smoker Venting System

About 3 weeks ago I wanted to smoke about 20lbs of pork butt, I do it at the entrance to my garage in an electric smoker the size of a big dorm frig. It takes about 14-18 hours depending on the weight. I decided to try to do it overnight; I smoked from 6pm to about 11, I went out when it was almost finished with the smoke phase to find a skunk had an interest in what I was doing, I managed to get him to go elsewhere but realized I could not just leave the door open. Closing the garage door even after the smoke phase produced quite a bit of smoke in the garage.

So I thought what about a venting system. This is the result before you get up about fire hazards, this is an electric smoker with that I set to 225 F the vent hole does not get above 135 F (I used my IR gun for all measurements). The pile gets to about 110 F near the smoker and the vent end doesn't get over 105 F. So the fire hazard NILL.

Tools:

Circular Saw

Drill with 4 in hole saw

Tin Snips and pliers

Sanding drum for the drill to ease out the hole.

Screw driver

Supplies

Plywood (5/8 in my case was hanging around)

Metal 4 inch dryer vent

4 inch aluminum flex tubing

band clamp(s) for 4 inch pipe

Aluminum tape (used when insulating heating vents)

Measure your window opening mine was 27 inches.

Also my scrap plywood was about 14 inchs wide this does not matter that much.

Cut the plywood to fit the opening, depending on your fit +/-.

Find the center by placing a tape measure diagonaly and draw a line along the tape near what you think the middle is. Do the same for the other two corners where the lines cross is the center.

Drill the 4 inch hole centered here.Use sand paper or a sanding drum to clean it up enough the vent will fit tightly through the opening.

To pass the vent through the opening you may have to put a series of cuts in the end of the pipe and bend them in using the snips an pliers. This will make it easier to fit in, mine is very snug.

In my case I had some foil tape used in insulation. It is fairly ridgid I cut a series of pieces about 4-5 inches long, folded them in half pulled off the wax sealing paper and made a rim around the edge of the hose about 1 inch beyond the 4 inch diameter.

No special lengths, as it leaked with only 4 I added more pieces until a whole ring was constructed (as you can see in the difference between these two pictures.

Place the vent in an open window and shut to hold it in. I used magnets to hold the hose to the smoker. If you have an old hard drive take the magnets out of it they are the best they are very strong "rare earth magnets" they have 1000s of uses.

From the pictures you can see the outside and inside temps are of little concern not even over 110F.

One final note: Place flashing under the vent otherwise you may end up with some smoke water vapor dropping on your window sill and it may stain curve it away.

Now I can close the garage for an all night smoke. I had some video but it was very undramatic.

Hey that clothespin holds the vent open given have not pressure in the pipe and justing looking to vent. The baby backs in the picture have some time to go.