I currently have a smoker that was my grandfathers and it has worked great. I love everything that I have made with it, even though it is an electric bullet smoker and they seemed to be looked down upon by hard core enthusiasts. But the main thing I like about it is that it IS ELECTRIC and that makes it so easy to use. Plug it in, wait for the heat, and you are good to go. There are a couple things I don't like about it though, and the main thing is its size. There are three racks, and if you want something that is tall, there is only one rack. Also the heating element could work a little better as I have a hard time maintaing heat. Granted it is thin metal, so there is no real insulation. So I added another element from a hot plate to bump it up, and that usually helps it to maintain. There are other little things that annoy me, but those are my to biggest disappointments about it.
So I decided to make my own smoker. I looked at different places and several people have made them from wood, which seams sketchy to me...heat...wood....FIRE!!! But they have done it and it seams to work fine, and there is supposed to be no fire in there right! Well, I have occasional fires in my smoker, but it is usually from opening the door, and some times I can not get it to stay out when that happens. Anyway, I decided to make a smoker from wood myself, so I thought I have some wood working tools in my basement, I'll give it a try.
I'm going to post some photos as I go and hopefully as I do this I will get some help on making the external smoke generator. Sure I could buy one, but I want to make it. It just seems cooler that way. I could buy a smoker as well, but…see the last sentence. So, nudge nudge hint hint "dcarch" (post #2)
Since I decided if I'm going to make this, I'm going to try to add some convince to it. Actually what it means is I’m going to make it over complicated, but hopefully it will be cool and I will be proud of it. Since I'm making it out of wood some of this convince may be lost in heaviness, but I'll see how that goes. If necessary later I may upgrade some parts to aluminum to make them lighter, but for now I'm using wood as I have it, so I don't have to go buy anything. So here it goes!
The main thing I'm making different is I'm making a rack of racks that are removable all at once. This way if all goes well, I can load up the racks inside, and carry them all out in one trip all ready for the smoker. My previous smoker I would load the racks up, open the house door, carry them through the door, find a place to set them so the meat does not touch the ground or grass or what ever, close the house door, pick them up, go to the smoker, find a place to set them so the meat does not touch the ground or grass or what ever, open the smoker, pick them up and put them in, and close the smoker. It seemed like a pain, and if I made a smoker with more racks, it would mean more trips doing this. So I’m making an attempt to lessen my little dilemma.
So I am making a rack to hold all of the racks so I only have to do this once, or maybe a couple of times if I can not lift the rack fully loaded. But I don't have to worry so much when setting it down as the meat will not be sitting directly on the ground, the rack will sit on the ground and the meat will be a couple inches above the ground. So here is my rack to hold the racks. It is just the frame, but I am just starting.
So I decided to make my own smoker. I looked at different places and several people have made them from wood, which seams sketchy to me...heat...wood....FIRE!!! But they have done it and it seams to work fine, and there is supposed to be no fire in there right! Well, I have occasional fires in my smoker, but it is usually from opening the door, and some times I can not get it to stay out when that happens. Anyway, I decided to make a smoker from wood myself, so I thought I have some wood working tools in my basement, I'll give it a try.
I'm going to post some photos as I go and hopefully as I do this I will get some help on making the external smoke generator. Sure I could buy one, but I want to make it. It just seems cooler that way. I could buy a smoker as well, but…see the last sentence. So, nudge nudge hint hint "dcarch" (post #2)
Since I decided if I'm going to make this, I'm going to try to add some convince to it. Actually what it means is I’m going to make it over complicated, but hopefully it will be cool and I will be proud of it. Since I'm making it out of wood some of this convince may be lost in heaviness, but I'll see how that goes. If necessary later I may upgrade some parts to aluminum to make them lighter, but for now I'm using wood as I have it, so I don't have to go buy anything. So here it goes!
The main thing I'm making different is I'm making a rack of racks that are removable all at once. This way if all goes well, I can load up the racks inside, and carry them all out in one trip all ready for the smoker. My previous smoker I would load the racks up, open the house door, carry them through the door, find a place to set them so the meat does not touch the ground or grass or what ever, close the house door, pick them up, go to the smoker, find a place to set them so the meat does not touch the ground or grass or what ever, open the smoker, pick them up and put them in, and close the smoker. It seemed like a pain, and if I made a smoker with more racks, it would mean more trips doing this. So I’m making an attempt to lessen my little dilemma.
So I am making a rack to hold all of the racks so I only have to do this once, or maybe a couple of times if I can not lift the rack fully loaded. But I don't have to worry so much when setting it down as the meat will not be sitting directly on the ground, the rack will sit on the ground and the meat will be a couple inches above the ground. So here is my rack to hold the racks. It is just the frame, but I am just starting.
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