General Electric upright freezer build

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thehog

Newbie
Original poster
Feb 26, 2013
14
10
Bismarck, ND
Been looking for a fridge or freezer to convert into a smoker for a couple months now and I found this guy.  I actually stumbled on this GE upright freezer in a shed on my families farm, had I known it was there it would have been turned into a smoker months ago. 

Started to tear it apart today.  Got it all gutted.  Work will stall though as I find some aluminum to patch the big hole in the back of the fridge box and around the fridge box and then find piece of metal for the inner door.  Plan to cover as many holes as I can with rack supports and the ones that are left I am going to use aluminum rivets with a little hi temp silicone to seal them and the bigger one where the thermostat as I will patch with aluminum and seal it with hi temp silicone.  I had planned on reinsulating but after seeing how good this stuff looked I decided not to.  I know you guys are jealous of the the pink interior.   I also found to more fridges that I am going to hopefully pick up this week, one is an old Kelvinator that doesnt work and the other is an International Harvester that the guy said work.  Plan to convert the Kelvinator as well and if the IH is in good shape I am going to clean it up and keep it as is, as you dont see very many of them around. 









 
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I'm having a lot of fun building mine. I wish I could find another fridge to do so I have another project to do when my fridge is done.
 
Been looking for a fridge or freezer to convert into a smoker for a couple months now and I found this guy.  I actually stumbled on this GE upright freezer in a shed on my families farm, had I known it was there it would have been turned into a smoker months ago. 

Started to tear it apart today.  Got it all gutted.  Work will stall though as I find some aluminum to patch the big hole in the back of the fridge box and around the fridge box and then find piece of metal for the inner door.  Plan to cover as many holes as I can with rack supports and the ones that are left I am going to use aluminum rivets with a little hi temp silicone to seal them and the bigger one where the thermostat as I will patch with aluminum and seal it with hi temp silicone.  I had planned on reinsulating but after seeing how good this stuff looked I decided not to.  I know you guys are jealous of the the pink interior.   I also found to more fridges that I am going to hopefully pick up this week, one is an old Kelvinator that doesnt work and the other is an International Harvester that the guy said work.  Plan to convert the Kelvinator as well and if the IH is in good shape I am going to clean it up and keep it as is, as you dont see very many of them around. 









you could cold smoke in it today. you would have to heat it up though to keep it from freezing
smiley_snowball.gif


happy smoken.

david
 
Finally finished up my build.  Just waiting for the last of the silicone to cure so I can wash everything, rub it all down with oil and season it.  I learned alot of do's and dont's from this build and will definitely do somethings different on my next build.

 
Seasoned it up today.  Took it to as high as the temp would go, 290 in about 1 and a half hours, let it sit there for a bit, then brought it down to 230 and added smoke.  Let it sit there for 1 and a half hours.  Seemed to work pretty good and was pretty consistent on maintaining temp.  Excited to see how it performs with meat in it.  I included a few pictures, I think the thin blue smoke looks pretty decent.


 
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Hey...looks like a good machine you got there. Just curious, where are those racks from? I'm thinking they look like the original freezer racks?? I've seen guys recommend not using the original freezer racks because of the coatings used were not intended for heat purposes. I just thought I would toss that in here just in case. No one wants to see someone get sick.

Enjoy!
 
 
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