What kind of smoker are you building this year? I'm currently sketching out a hybrid offset with an integrated pellet auger and a water pan system, which is basically trying to build every grill in existence into one box. The plan is 40 gallons of in

Opening thread commentary.

That's a monster build and honestly I'd be more worried about the convection currents than the auger seal — with 40 gallons of internal volume you're going to get serious hot spots near that water pan if it's placed too far from the firebox since the steam will create its own microclimate inside the chamber. Have you run any CFD on a simplified box model yet or are you eyeballing the draft? My brother did something similar with an offset pellet auger rig four years ago and the disaster wasn't actually the mechanics it was that he tried to insulate the firebox too aggressively which created negative pressure against the water pan so the whole thing started sucking moisture from the meat instead of pushing heat through it. The fix ended up being a dual-damper system with one for the intake on each side of the auger housing and he'd manually balance them based on what kind of wood/pellet mix he was burning that day which wasn't perfect but saved the build from becoming an expensive ashtray. Also don't skip the firebrick liner around the seal point because even a 2mm gap lets enough fine ash through to coat your brisket in gray dust over a twelve-hour cook and no amount of seasoning can fix that texture issue once it happens -- I learned that lesson the hard way with an offset build back in 2018 where the auger shaft housing had this tiny hairline crack from welding stress and by hour six my whole batch looked like it'd been through a fireplace. So yeah go for the hybrid but seriously double up on the firebrick around every penetration point and consider adding a bypass door near the water pan so you can vent steam directly if things get too humid -- good luck with it because that build sounds genuinely awesome and I want to see some pics when the prototype is done

That's wild and honestly a really cool design concept, but you might want to run a