I wasn't very scientific in my 1st cook with the downdraft hood. I was also testing out my new Amazn tube smoke generator at the same time so I wasn't isolating the cook to just observing the downdraft hood.
The ambient temp was about 60 degrees and the sun was shining directly on my smoker. For some reason my grate temp was running about 40 degrees hotter than my rtd. My dome temp seemed to be much more in line with my grate temp. Not a big deal because I compensated for it but just disappointing. I also have my drip pan foiled and then I lay foil oven liner pans on top of that so I'm not sure how much that affected the difference between the rtd and grate temp.
I was smoking a slab of ribs. I was shooting for 275 grate temp and going 4 hours on the cook. My grate temp ran closer to 287 while I had set my PID to 245 once I realized the difference in temp. Again, the dome temp was pretty close to what my grate temp was running so I don't know if it was the foil drip pan, foiled pan liners and/ the sun shining directly on the smoker or all of the above that caused the difference. I don't think the downdraft hood had anything to do with the temp difference and, of course, I guess I could have a faulty rtd too. Too many variables to know for sure until I smoke the next time.
I was kind of expecting the smoke to be forced out the grease tube more than before once I added the downdraft hood. It did have more smoke than normal flowing through it but there was still a good amount of smoke coming from the smoke stack so I thought it was probably a good balance. Again, I was also trying out the Amazn tube on this cook whereas I had been using the big kahuna smoke generator before.
BTW, I was very satisfied with the Amazn tube. I have the 18" tube and it not only put out plenty of smoke but it went for 6hours and completely burned up every pellet. It doesn't put out as much smoke
As the big kahuna nor as intense a smoke flavor because I use chunks in the big kahuna but it does still put out plenty of smoke. It also is easier to use than the big kahuna IMO because it can go 6hours without any tending. Still like the big kahuna but I'll probably use the tube most of the time in the future.
Sorry I wasnt able to give much of a report that was specific to just the downdraft hood. I'm satisfied with it as I could tell by the smoke that it was keeping the heat and smoke down longer than before which were my primary objectives along with an even grate temp. I can't speak to the evenness of the grate temp because I only had one maverick grate probe in one location on this cook. Next time I'll use 2 and see how they run.
I thought the ribs turned out very well so I was happy with the results overall.
