- Dec 3, 2012
- 84
- 83
I've been stalking these forums for over a year now, and finally am needing some input. About a year ago we had two major wind storms hit our area, and unfortunately our house was a direct hit. My grandparents house was abandoned at the time, and was completely flattened. The second storm piled trees onto the back of the house, and to put it into perspective we had over 800 trees go down in both storms. While most people would be crying for Obama and FEMA help I saw an opportunity. Getting to the point I decided to build a smokehouse out of the recycled materials. Most of my projects like this get a good start and stop about 1/3 of the way into it so I'm going to need some support of this forum of how to convince my wife this is a "different project".
With that as the background this is what I'm planning on:
I have made and plan to continue to make smokies, smoked fished, landjaeggar, lots of fresh and cooked sausages, smoked turkey, duck, goose and want to do some rabbit ham and other ideas. Because of the diversity of products I want to make sure I have my thermostat and temperature controls right as well as the proper airflow and spacing. I'm thinking the most meat I would have in the unit at 1 time would be smokies so I thought perhaps 3" spacing between racks?
I will use 2X12's for the walls and roof because that's what my roof was made of. I've decided to make it oven rack width 26" and double oven rack deep 28" so I can cut down on the rack costs by salvaging the racks from discarded ovens. I will build it as tall as I can with the 2X12's available. I'm guessing it will be about 7' tall, and I plan on trimming it similar to our house so it fits the motif. Any input for lining, heat, fans, smoke, electricity, lights etc would be greatly appreciated. I think I have a good idea from the previous stalking, but am hoping someone who has already gone through this can chime in. It will be both hot and cold smoke capable, but what is the max temperature I can go with the wood framing?
Here's the beginning:
View media item 403979
Future Smoker
Grandma's House
Side note; thought I'd throw in a picture of the truck and horse trailer (attached to truck) hit by the 2nd storm.
Base = 8" concrete with a 4" drain/cold smoke pipe in the bottom. Unfortunately, I didn't have a backhoe so everything including tree roots were shoveled out. We live in North Idaho so I had to get below the frost line which really sucks because as you can see in the photo there's lots of rocks in the soil.
Pressure treat mudsill.
I intend to build up and slope the floor with some sort of either clay or ceramic. My concern with clay is because it will be wood walls I can't fire the clay to make it pottery and I don't know if just dry clay is a floor or not?. Any floor covering advice would be appreciated. I've read concrete will eventually crack because of the gravel expanding with the heat. I don't know if that is true or not?
I'll get the walls and roof framed in this weekend. I told my wife no more than $200 and I'll get it done. Concrete and 2x12 pressure treat was $48. I'm 120' from the closest 240v power so I'm thinking propane or wood is my only heat choice?
I am quite creative and capable of jerry rigging stuff so let me know of low cost ideas for the burner/heat. A buddy says he is going to send a Brinkman smoke generator so if he comes through that will help a lot even though I'll have cold smoke capabilities if I want to build and maintain a fire.
With that as the background this is what I'm planning on:
I have made and plan to continue to make smokies, smoked fished, landjaeggar, lots of fresh and cooked sausages, smoked turkey, duck, goose and want to do some rabbit ham and other ideas. Because of the diversity of products I want to make sure I have my thermostat and temperature controls right as well as the proper airflow and spacing. I'm thinking the most meat I would have in the unit at 1 time would be smokies so I thought perhaps 3" spacing between racks?
I will use 2X12's for the walls and roof because that's what my roof was made of. I've decided to make it oven rack width 26" and double oven rack deep 28" so I can cut down on the rack costs by salvaging the racks from discarded ovens. I will build it as tall as I can with the 2X12's available. I'm guessing it will be about 7' tall, and I plan on trimming it similar to our house so it fits the motif. Any input for lining, heat, fans, smoke, electricity, lights etc would be greatly appreciated. I think I have a good idea from the previous stalking, but am hoping someone who has already gone through this can chime in. It will be both hot and cold smoke capable, but what is the max temperature I can go with the wood framing?
Here's the beginning:
View media item 403979
Future Smoker
Grandma's House
Side note; thought I'd throw in a picture of the truck and horse trailer (attached to truck) hit by the 2nd storm.
Base = 8" concrete with a 4" drain/cold smoke pipe in the bottom. Unfortunately, I didn't have a backhoe so everything including tree roots were shoveled out. We live in North Idaho so I had to get below the frost line which really sucks because as you can see in the photo there's lots of rocks in the soil.
Pressure treat mudsill.
I intend to build up and slope the floor with some sort of either clay or ceramic. My concern with clay is because it will be wood walls I can't fire the clay to make it pottery and I don't know if just dry clay is a floor or not?. Any floor covering advice would be appreciated. I've read concrete will eventually crack because of the gravel expanding with the heat. I don't know if that is true or not?
I'll get the walls and roof framed in this weekend. I told my wife no more than $200 and I'll get it done. Concrete and 2x12 pressure treat was $48. I'm 120' from the closest 240v power so I'm thinking propane or wood is my only heat choice?
I am quite creative and capable of jerry rigging stuff so let me know of low cost ideas for the burner/heat. A buddy says he is going to send a Brinkman smoke generator so if he comes through that will help a lot even though I'll have cold smoke capabilities if I want to build and maintain a fire.
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