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This should help! I made a grate from steel fence posts that sits right above my vents, inspired by berkshires grate. I also threw a few pavers along the sides. They aren't fire brick, so there is a chance they will crack but for the price difference, I don't mind replacing a couple each season. Attachment 17628Attachment 17629
That's much better! If you can, you should double the number of bars in the grates. You don't want the coals dropping down into the ash pit. Better if they sit on the grate and the air coming up through will burn them up. Less ash, more heat. Plus the air is better distributed across the width and length of the fuel. make sure there are no short cuts for the air in fort of or back of the grate. Block off any with more of the at brick. Air that goes around the fire will decrease your effective draft and cool the pans.
You are going to have fun with tis! I made lot's of great syrup with my old steam table pans!
I can do that! I just need to go grab another fence post from Lowes. Makes sense that you would want all the hot coals to stay above the air source so that it has to blow through them.
Ooh, I also have some chicken wire I could tack under the grate to hold the coals up. I might give that a try first and go from there.
I don't think you want the chicken wire but you only want a space of about 3/8" opening between the posts. If you look at the picture where posts were suggested, those posts when installed give a U shape to hold ashes and then the spacing to the next post is on top of the open U shape. That way ashes fill the U to protect the post and air flows thru the space. I'm not sure the T post you used is ideal for that.
Chicken wire will just burn up. Definitely more fence post, and yeah, I'd recommend the "U" style rather than "T" style.
BTW, if you're curious to know any more of the details about my franken-stove-evaporator, here's a link to a post where I showed how I made it: http://mapletrader.com/community/sho...g-stove-cheap!
Thanks for sharing! I am going to boil tomorrow with this wire fence stuff I stuck in there. I don't think it will last long but I can at least test the idea. Probably my best bet is to go grab a u shaped fence post and fill in the areas in between with it so that the coals don't drop through. Thanks for all the info! This has helped a lot!Attachment 17647