Kitchen Ventilation Help/Options

Well, I think I have had it.

We have a gas stove with the standard hood over the top of it and several times when baking we have gotten smoked out by the darn thing.  

On Thanksgiving we spatchcocked and baked a turkey. Off hand i dont remember the temp but nothing crazy and not broil.  We did use the convection setting however.Ideal rack settings. Last year no convection setting and still billowing smoke.

Just on Christmas we baked a standing rib roast.  Fine until the last ten minutes of the reverse sear where I turned the oven to 500 degrees.  In 6 minutes smoke and the smoke alarms went off and a lovely haze filled out home.

Enough.

I read and checked out and my hood/fan assembly is nothing more then a crap filter that just takes air and throws it back into the kitchen.  This last time I looked at the oven as it was blowing smoke and the vent for that is on the top right somewhere between the LCD panel/buttons and the cook top.

What do I do?

What are my options? Ideas?

Am I a bit stuck without massive changes or upgrades?

First, clean your oven. It definitely should not be smoking. 
 

Second, listen to Tom Silva:

Oven is just over a year old. Kept quite clean.

Even the first time we made a turkey it smoked. Im not sure this is the core issue.

Ill check out the video

Timely, and thank you for posting the video, as I shorted out my range hood reinstalling the reusable filter before it was completely dry the other week. I've been procrastinating on replacing it. 

(And yes I'm replacing it instead of rewiring it, as I want to get a stainless range hood, Even though it won't match the rest of the appliances, as the range hood is at least at eye level) 

CarKid1989 said:

Oven is just over a year old. Kept quite clean.

Even the first time we made a turkey it smoked. Im not sure this is the core issue.

Ill check out the video

 

Then I'd guess there is a problem with the oven. It is making something smoke, and it isn't the food unless you're cooking directly on the oven floor. So what is burning? 

If all the hood is doing is just filtering the air, not exhausting it from the house, that sounds like a real problem.  Yesterday, we cooked a rib roast, starting out at 500* and finishing off at close to that.  It smoked a bit - spattering grease does that - but the smoke was kept under control by the vent and a slightly cracked window.

If your range and hood are on an outside wall, go buy a high capacity external-vent hood and install it or get it installed.  The hood should exhaust at least 100cf/min for each foot of range width (at least that is what I was told for a previous home). 

In our current house, we have a down-draft system since our stove is in an island.  The down-draft exits through the crawlspace and then outside the house.  Not as effective as an overhead hood, but far better than a recirculating hood I think.

For my standing rib roast...

Start with rib in iron skillet.

500 degrees for 5 minutes per pound or 33 minutes for my 6.5 pounder.   At that time reduce to 325 degrees and continue until the thermometer tells you when to stop (maybe 1.5 hours.)  

 I'm not blaming your cooking, but...  At the end, the iron skillet is filled with the beef fat drippings.  If I were to put the temp back to 500 degrees at the end, there would certainly be smoking.  Start with 500 degrees and there is no smoking.

As mom always used to say, "the smoke alarm is not a kitchen timer."

I have similar troubles with my hood.  It's in the microwave, but they didn't take the time to cut the wall.  They just used the top exhaust.  Now the top of the microwave and the cabinet above it is covered in that impossible sticky grease film.  The microwave is making funny sounds so I'm hoping it's on its death bed.  I don't want to pull the microwave and do all that work and have it die next week and be doing the work again.

Not sure why things are smoking so much for you.  That's a puzzle.

I've never seen a hood that didn't have a setup that allowed it to vent through the wall to the outside. 
 

90% of the hoods I've seen were installed without venting to the outside.

FWIW, our fan above the oven works wonders for keeping the smoke throwing the smoke detectors in in the house.

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah i am always confused by people that have me install a hood so that it basically blows hot air at their face while cooking.  
 

when i do my kitchen I'm putting in a commercial hood with a big vent to the outside.  

Venting is rarely considered when framing the house.  It's not considered until the appliances are being installed, and it's too late then. 
 

It's hard to vent an island cooktop, or a stove on an interior wall, or a garage wall. The only ones that are fairly easy are outside walls.

But even outside walls don't work well. It's a 10" wide duct in a 14" space between studs. Not much room for error- you can't move the duct side to side at all.

Studs are laid out on 16" centers to make the plywood layout properly.  Nobody checks the centerline of the stove when laying out studs (and frequently the exact kitchen layout isn't even determined at that point).

So stoves rarely get vented.  Even when there is a hood. 

Oh, and exterior vent exhaust boots for hoods are never insulated, so the vent punches a hole in the insulation envelope.

It's a perfect place for a bad draft.