Smoke stack temp.

[jbutton]

I am hearing that smoke stack temp. Should be 700 and higher. I can only get mine just over 630. I've got a blower and burning a mix of hard and soft wood.

[mellondome]

Tell us more about your setup. Pan size.. blower size /configuration. Wood size. Fire rate stack diameter and height. Arch setup.

This info will help us help you

[blissville maples]

Between 750-900 is ideal.....is your blower blowing too hard, cooling the fire?? Or perhaps your wood has some moisture to it. If your arch isn't air tight that could be an issue also.

[jbutton]

Arch is air tight. The blower I have a switch to control the speed. It's a 2x4 hybrid. Wood is around wrist size. And should be dry. Sat undercover for a year.stack is 8 inch and 12 feet tall.

[mellondome]

How often are you adding wood?
Stack damper?

[nymapleguy607]

Are you using a probe type stack thermometer or a magnetic type? That could give you a big difference. 2nd problem could be not enough draw from your stack.

[mol1jb]

I am hearing that smoke stack temp. Should be 700 and higher. I can only get mine just over 630. I've got a blower and burning a mix of hard and soft wood.

This is a hard question to answer cause everyones rig runs different and is setup different. I would ask you a question back. Are you happy with your boil rate in gph? If yes dont worry about comparing stack temps. Its more a tool for you to know when to fire your rig based on when the stack temps start to drop during a boil. If you are not happy with your gph rate then lets talk about your rig setup, fireing rate and amount of wood added, amount of space under pans, ect.

[blissville maples]

Hmmm, everything sounds good.....no smoke blowing out anywhere??

Maybe tone the blower down and see what happens, could stack thermometer be broken or off?

[maple flats]

I ran much hotter before I added AOF, you don't have Air Over Fire do you? With AOF I run between 650-750 most of the time and my boil rate is good. I add wood every 9 minutes by a timer.

[maple flats]

At 12' tall your stack should be high enough, unless you have something interfering with the draft. Tall trees , hills or other buildings are just some things that can cause the draft to be too low, or even a down draft.

[Tweegs]

How far up the stack are you measuring?

The higher up the stack your probe is, the cooler it will read.
You can compare readings with another sugarhouse only if you define the specific parameters
(i.e. X number of degrees at Y inches above the base of the stack)
Don’t measure your probe height from the floor. Height from the floor is irrelevant.
Measure from the base of the stack.

My probe is almost 6 feet above the base. That is because I use a thermocouple for measurements and I don’t want to clothesline myself on the wire.
Here, once we’ve been up and running a while and the firebrick is all toasty warm, we average around 700*.

I don’t know if that is a true 700 degrees as my probe isn’t calibrated…Likely, neither is anyone else’s.
Probes could be off by a few to more than a couple hundred degrees sugarhouse to sugarhouse.

As Mol1jb points out, knowing the true stack temp isn’t necessary.
Use it only as a reference of when to fire your rig.