I've been smoking with a Char-Griller smoking pro smoker for several years now. I modded it up, and it gets decent performance, the only real downside is having to baby sit the thing. Every hour adding charcoal, fighting with temps, I get tired of messing with it. A few months ago, my dad was cleaning out his junk piles when scrap metal was high, and decided most everything was going. I grabbed the start of my build.
Its an old 150 gallon fuel tank that hasn't been used in around 20 years or so. It measures around 30" in diameter by 48" tall. My basic plan is to build a large UDS from it. I debated doing a reverse flow smoker, but I settled on trying to make a tight upright from it to make it more efficient and self sufficient smoker. It will probably be a slow build, but it's in progress. So far my only expense has been new grates for it. After some searching, the largest and cheapest round grates I could find were 24.5" grates. I'll have around a 2.5" gap around the outside from the grates, but it won't be too bad.
Two of those only set me back $32 including shipping from campmor, they should be here Monday. Total cooking area will be 943 square inches.
The firebox will rest on an old 21" standard metal grate, with extruded metal mesh.
The exhaust will be made of 3" exhaust pipe that was in the scrap pile.
Here's a few other pictures of the pre-build UBUDS:
Its an old 150 gallon fuel tank that hasn't been used in around 20 years or so. It measures around 30" in diameter by 48" tall. My basic plan is to build a large UDS from it. I debated doing a reverse flow smoker, but I settled on trying to make a tight upright from it to make it more efficient and self sufficient smoker. It will probably be a slow build, but it's in progress. So far my only expense has been new grates for it. After some searching, the largest and cheapest round grates I could find were 24.5" grates. I'll have around a 2.5" gap around the outside from the grates, but it won't be too bad.
Two of those only set me back $32 including shipping from campmor, they should be here Monday. Total cooking area will be 943 square inches.
The firebox will rest on an old 21" standard metal grate, with extruded metal mesh.
The exhaust will be made of 3" exhaust pipe that was in the scrap pile.
Here's a few other pictures of the pre-build UBUDS: