My UDS build

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dpeart

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Aug 16, 2011
98
10
Round Rock, TX
I built my UDS a month or so ago and am now finally putting up my build picts.

My initial smoker was an electric ECB.  It worked great, and I've put out a lot of good BBQ, but my main complaint was that at 18" in diameter it was a pain to cook a whole packer brisket as they are typically more than 18" long.  I was always having to curl it up to get it to fit.  Same thing went for ribs, I just didn't like it.

My goals were to have a bigger smoker and 22.5" diameter seemed really nice.  I liked the efficiency of the vertical smokers.  I thought it would be fun to make one, and my buddy wanted one as well so we decided to build two of them.  I wanted to be able to use the electric element from the ECB in the UDS as well as charcoal.  I figured the best of both worlds.

To support the electrical element I went with a single 1.25" air intake instead of the typcial 3x3/4".  I used three U-bolts to hold each of the racks in place, and put in three racks.  I bought a $30 22.5" kettle from Big Lots that provided the lid, one grate, and the charcoal basket and handle.

So now for the picts.

My schematic, dimensions are in inches:

2db365b4_UDS1.png


I live in Austin and the dry weather prohibited me from doing a burn out, so I used paint stripper on my barrel.  The barrel had anti-freeze in it initially, so I good soapy scrubbing and power washing cleaned it up.  I then used some paint stripper to remove the outside paint.  There was no inner liner.

0ab643c7_IMG_3044.jpg


Suggestion for others.  Don't wear sandals when stripping paint, it really stings/burns when bits and pieces of the paint/stripper get on your feet!

769482d2_IMG_3048.jpg


All stripped clean, with the help of a little wire brush.

2898f94a_IMG_3052.jpg


Now fitting the lid:

f3591946_IMG_3057.jpg


We then cut the top 2" of so off the kettle bottom to allow it to fit in the smoker and make the charcoal basket.

8f5f7704_IMG_3056.jpg


Looking inside the smoker you can see the charcoal basket and the 1.25" air intake

c95813ba_IMG_3060.jpg


One coat of high-temp primer followed by two coats high-temp flat black paint.  (still need to paint the lid)  You can also see that I have the electrical heater in it with my BBQ Guru hooked up.

fc29d3a4_IMG_4282.jpg


That's it!  It works great, is a little heavy to move around, but works awesome.  Smoked spare ribs, chicken quarters, bacon and cheese in it so far.

thanks,

dave
 
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Yep thats  U D S It now should give you many good years of pure smoking pleasure.
 
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 That was a great idea to get a cheap kettle and fully use it. I'll bet you will be turning out some GREAT Q in no time. 
 
I didn't realize it had been 4 months since I built my UDS, so here is a quick update.

I've done a lot of ribs, leg quarters, turkey, bacon, cheese, and sausage on it.  For the bacon, cheese and sausage I use the electrical element with my contoller.  I have a BBQ Guru with the PowerRaptor SSR, and a home made Link Meter/Heater Meter combo.  You can google it and you'll see info on the web about it.

I have not done a charcoal cook longer than 7 hours yet.  I really need to do an overnight butt cook, or brisket to see how that works.  For the 6 hours ribs (two racks of spare ribs) I use 2.5 chimneys of charcoal and it work great.

As far as changing anything, the only thing I would consider changing would be the intake.  With the 1.5" intake I have to close the ball valve almost completely to keep the temp low enough, with or without the controller.  As I think a 1" would be fine for anything I would ever need and I think a 1" would be large enough to pass the electric plug for through I would go with a 1" intake.  If I needed more to run without the controller I would just add another 3/4" and cap it.

I can't think of anything else I would change.  After 10 or so cooks, the cheap-o charcoal grill grate is wearing thin, so I'll need to upgrade it this summer, but I planned on doing this eventually anyway.  I'll probably just go buy a Weber grate from HD or Lowes.

dave
 
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