All fired up for my Wood pellet fed hopper and Smoke generator on my ECB 2 door vertical

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pork dork

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Feb 7, 2014
88
13
Napa CA
Hey all I'm taking a brake from my mods to my ECB 2 door vertical.

Before I get too far I just want to thank Dennis of SmokeDaddyinc. We have gone threw hell and back over my Wood Pellet Hopper. Please let me explain that best I can. After a conversation witn Dennis about his hopper and it's warantee I took the plunge. $350 for my sleep seems like a cheap price to pay in the long run. So I ordered it. Then I saw some mods for UDS and Vertical smokers like my ECB 2 door on Dennis's web site. So I called and added the $10 for that. No biggie. I got the brackets from Dennis at SD via USPS last Wednesday and thought that the hopper would be sent the same way by USPS. What is it that we know about assuming things...  
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 That's right and I was that a$$.

I received the tracking information via text   from USPS on thursday and I thought it was for the hopper. I got it the text when  I was on a job the next city over  that said your delivery was just made at 2:10 PM. I  didn't know it was for the brackets from the day before when I got the text. I was expecting to see a big box on my pourch with the pellet hopper in it. After my Costco run (it's right there) I drove the 30 minutes it takes to get home. There was a package on the door but it wasn't the hopper. It was from Amazon and it was an aerator pump that is like the ones in Dennis's videos for his smoke generators. It was a used one and didn't work right so I was working on getting it sent back. Then it dawned on me that somethning was missing. My Pellet hopper was nowhere to be found.

There is an elementary shcool at the end of my street and a middle school a block over so after school gets out my street is like a parking lott for about an hour. I asked the all my neighbors but they hadn't seen it. I thought that someone that was picking up a kid also picked up my Pellet Hopper. You see I was certain that the tracking was for the pellet hopper and not the brackets because the brackets got here the day before and not that day like the text said ! 

I freaked out. Yes it was insured and would be covered but I didn't want to go threw that hastle and time to reorder and the suspision that I just wanted two for the price of one. I called Dennis from two timezones away. Pacific VS Central so of course he wasn't in the office. I called USPS but they are on the east coast and three time zones later than Pacific time and they were closed. But they would open at 8:AM which was 5:AM here. So I stayed up till then to call first thing in the morning.

I'm sure that they deal with much worse on the east coast than missing packages but the lady at the USPS could have seemed to care just a bit. Am I saying that she was just a touch jaded? Does the Pope $hit in the woods? Just a scrap of giving a damn would have been fine for me but all I got after my report was " Ya, Okay someone will call you back in a day or two" Well they got back the later that day and they said that the tracking number I gave them was for a package that weighed 1 LB. (Keep in mind that I still havn't been to bet yet.) In my sleep deprived mind it dawned on me that she was talking about the brackets I got two days prior to that.That call was interupted by I believe her name is Dawn that works in the office for Dennis at SmokeDaddyinc. She told me that the hopper was sent via FedEX and I should have it later that day. 

The poor FedEX guy didn't know why I was taking pix of him getting out of his truck. He didn't know that back story on my harowing experience with the mail system.  He asked why I was taking pix and I said because I'm excited about receiving what's in that box. I think he thought that I was documenting just in case it was dammaged. Nothing could be further from the truth.                      

       
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I definatly have out classed my ECB 2 door by a factor of 3 with the addition of a Wood Pellet hopper.


I missed it by 2.5 inches of felt. Anyone got some laying arround they want to donate to a good cause? Cause I'm too cheap to spend $20 and change for a couple inches of felt. That's a good cause. At least in my mind it is.  
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Here's the 4" x 4" x 16" aluminum tube for my smoke generator build. I'm thinking I'm going to need to put it up so I can empty the bottom out. And put a baffel inside the smoker so I don't loose smoke out of the exaust port that's right there behind it. Also I'm going to need a pump that's just stronger than the positive pressure from the fan on the pellet hopper. 

More pix to follow and, "The Rest of the story" as Paul Harvy says
 
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A new day dawns on my build and sourcing fuel for the Wood Pellet Hopper and Smoke Generator. I'll post my guided discoveries on the Pellet thread later. 
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This is how the hopper is going to attach to the ECB box with some glass felt as an insulator and heat loss prevention between the cup and bottom. I had to use longer Stainless taping screws.

  
I'm not sure if this is okay for the pellet hopper or not. At the bottom of the auger there is about a 1/16" lip that the pellets have to get over but I figure that it's not going to be a problem. They will just be pushed over it right? or have I set in motion catastrophic failure that's going to result in the burning down of my Smoker and home but most importantly my smoker?      
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A little late night wood working. Sorry neighbors. I'll invite you over for some smokey delight when I'm done.


I've repurposed a home made Bio Diesel cart for my platform. Never mind the phone number and WVO transporters license. Both are expired.

  
It dawned on me that a red guard would be a far better choice than the blue for my platform being its colors are going to be black with red pinstripe and lettering. This is going to be a cool looking build when it's done.  


Being I don't want to be run out of the neighborhood on a rail I'll put my baby to sleep for the night. It's getting close to 10:PM.   
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Here's smoke in your eye,
 
The build continues.   
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 Teaching myself how to make a border for the platform that it's going to sit on with some scrap tubing. I heat it up with a heat gun and slip the handle of the wrench in it and with an ove glove push it on as the wrench handle opens it enough to slide it on. Much more difficult than it sounds.

 
Also I figured out how to cut it at the corners of the wood at a 45 angle to bend around the corner and the final one to tuck in the end and staple it so it doesn't come apart on me.
 

 
One platform with wheels for the smoker. Next is to teach myself how to paint realistic flames. I may give up if it proves to be too difficult.
 
Sorry I was gone for a while. I was being held captive by a tribe of cannibals but when I told them of my smoked flesh project they let me go to finish it.

   
Here it is on it's maiden voyage to smoke some drum sticks for my dinner. 

 
As you all you pellet fed hopper owners may know it holds a 20LB bag of pellets. 


I took these off after about 4 hours when they reached 175F and wraped them in foil to rest for about 15 minutes. They didn't even need the smoke generator to reach smokey perfection.       
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It's great. I thought I was going to need a cold smoke generator to add smoke but it gets plenty of smoke. At least the chicken and my first two fatties that I smoked got plenty of smoke. We'll see when I smoke something else. I've got a pork butt in the freezer that's just it itchen to get some smoke on it. :grilling_smilie:




 
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