Hello all. For some smoking situations, I prefer to run my SNS dry. Has anyone tried using sand in the water chamber? I assume it might work as both heat-sink (thermal mass) and insulator to even out temperatures inside the pit.
Or is the air gap in the empty water chamber good enough?
I will try this sometime this week but thought I’d check with you all first. Thanks!
Despite havin 'a few' Weber kettles, an cookin outdoors 'every now an again', as well as 'a few' SnS, + an XL'...I've not tried this.
I've either used water, or not...both based upon th situation/protein(s)/time constraints of th particular moment(s)
With absolute certainty, sand would create a (certain degree of) thermal barrier, but my best (unedjumacated) guess would be that, given th rest of th airflow profile, it would be a negligible difference, at best...
Would I try it? Nope, seems like more time/labour-intensive investment vs. payoff/dividend potential, imho...
(An I don't wanna haveta clean alla th sand outta my SnS, later )
Should ya try it? By all means, I would look forward to yer experience, findins, an results, should ya choose to do so...
I'm ALL about learnin, science, methods, techniques, etc.; that's why this is such a richly rewardin place to habitate, here in cyberworld...
As I ponder th experiment/ results, it doth seem to me that th only way to achieve empirical evidence, that is scientifically valid, would be to do an enormous mutiplicity of test runs, with th exact same fire, an th exact same proteins, under th exact same ambient temps, winds, humidity, etc.
Obviously, makin all th constants constant, in order to have th variables to analyze is th hurdle I see, that has prevented me from, heretofore, makin such a time investiture...
I will be followin with great interest, if/when ya decide to blaze this trail, Brother!
Equipment
Primo Oval xl
Slow n Sear (two)
Drip n Griddle
22" Weber Kettle
26" Weber Kettle one touch
Blackstone 36†Pro Series
Sous vide machine
Kitchen Aid
Meat grinder
sausage stuffer
5 Crock Pots Akootrimonts
Two chimneys (was 3 but rivets finally popped, down to 1)
cast iron pans,
Dutch ovens
Signals 4 probe, thermapens, chef alarms, Dots, thermapop and maverick T-732, RTC-600, pro needle and various pocket instareads. The help and preferences
1 extra fridge and a deep chest freezer in the garage
KBB
FOGO
A 9 year old princess foster child
Patience and old patio furniture
"Baby Girl" The cat
sand and water have very different specific heat capacities. Water has a very high specific heat capacity (4.187 kj/kg/deg C) whereas sand is much lower (0.830 kj/kg/deg C).
I think that means you would need about 5x the mass of sand to capture the same heat. Considering the density of dry fine sand and water...i think it works out to you still needing about 3 times the volume of sand than water.
All that said, i think it means that sand would actually not be an effective heat sink/thermal mass compared to water in the SnS.
Sand will still contain moisture until it completely dries out. It is just the nature of the beast, unless you can buy laboratory quality sand and then you will pay a pretty penny. But definitely go ahead and try it and let us know how it worked out.
Before I bought an SnS I used a fire brick to separate the coals when I was smoking or cooking indirect with my Weber. It worked OK, but SnS works better (with water). I think filling it with sand will function about the same as the fire brick did. It'll work OK, but not as well as with water.
I rarely put water in the SNS anymore. I’m using it less in general (water in my cooks). With that said, while sand will hold onto heat and probably heat up evenly, the hollow wall helps prevent hot spots on the indirect side.
The air gap works really well. I had to cram a bunch of steaks in for the first half of a reverse sear yesterday and even the ones near the fire, right next to the end of the SNS wall where the fire didn’t show any noticeable differences.
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