Well I started thinking about this around the middle of last week. It feels like I read 4 million post, I'm sure it wasn't quite that many but it feels like it. Friday I grabbed two 55's and a 30'ish gallon barrels. Coconut oil in the two big ones and cinnamon in the small one. No liners and the two large have banded tops. The small one is a crimp lid on both ends.
Leaving home to do my weekly mowing all I could think about was building. Finished mowing around 4 and hit the Big Lots to grab a 29 dollar grill. Stopped off at the hardware store since in my many post reading I seem to have had a brain fart and bought 1" hardware. My bad. Traded it all out for the 3/4 stuff and was on my way home.
I used the grinder and a flap disk to remove the bottom drum end. Just a little grind right on the side of the lip will reveal a tiny line. This is where the drum end becomes a lid that will reseal to the drum or it can be made into an ash pan.
On mine I choose to grind the lip totally off the lid and use it for an ash pan. A little snug but a few taps all the way around the lid and it was a very nice fit.
BTW maybe its just my drums, but mine worked out that the grill lid fits completely Perfect on the bottom end of the barrel. Had I used it on the real top I would have had to do a mess of body work on it to make it fit.
Every thing else is pretty much the same other then I welded studs for my shelves and I welded the nipples just so if the cap gets stuck I can stick a wrench on it.
I tried PVC for the riser and ball valve. 4 dollars just seems better then 33 for a brass valve.
I didn't put the damper flapper on the lid since we want the smoke out wide open. Does anyone know if I will get to much air flow thru the top vent when I try to kill the coals after a cook?
I plan to make a cute little hat for that vent in time, to keep water out more then anything.
Loaded with 10 grey coals at 8:45 PM. On to a basket with approx 12 lbs of regular old K. 9ish I closed it up and left all three inlets open. 9:30ish I was nearing 200 and shut down the 2 caps. Held under 200 with the ball valve open full. I took one cap off and 1/2 to 3/4 on the valve. Jumped to 250 pretty quick and slowly went up to 310. At 11:00 I went out and shut the valve down to just barley open. Now we are starting to drop back to the 250 range.
This is really starting to look like a pretty cool deal. I like it already.
Here is a few pics, there is more in my album at this address.
http://picasaweb.google.com/keesfriend/UglyDrumSmoker#
OMG somehow I managed to make 2 of my pics show up and now the 3rd shows as a link. This is the way I post on all my other sites. Can anyone tell me what it is that I am doing wrong here. I use Picassa and select the hide album show link only. Simply copy and paste into the img button and the pic shows on all the other sites. That didnt work here so I entered my own
This has also worked for me else where. Any ideas guys??
Ok its 11:45 and my temp is at 330* Now I capped the second inlet and shut the valve down to 1/2. I hope this takes it back down to 250 to 300.
Thanks for looking everyone.
Tom
Leaving home to do my weekly mowing all I could think about was building. Finished mowing around 4 and hit the Big Lots to grab a 29 dollar grill. Stopped off at the hardware store since in my many post reading I seem to have had a brain fart and bought 1" hardware. My bad. Traded it all out for the 3/4 stuff and was on my way home.
I used the grinder and a flap disk to remove the bottom drum end. Just a little grind right on the side of the lip will reveal a tiny line. This is where the drum end becomes a lid that will reseal to the drum or it can be made into an ash pan.
On mine I choose to grind the lip totally off the lid and use it for an ash pan. A little snug but a few taps all the way around the lid and it was a very nice fit.
BTW maybe its just my drums, but mine worked out that the grill lid fits completely Perfect on the bottom end of the barrel. Had I used it on the real top I would have had to do a mess of body work on it to make it fit.
Every thing else is pretty much the same other then I welded studs for my shelves and I welded the nipples just so if the cap gets stuck I can stick a wrench on it.
I tried PVC for the riser and ball valve. 4 dollars just seems better then 33 for a brass valve.
I didn't put the damper flapper on the lid since we want the smoke out wide open. Does anyone know if I will get to much air flow thru the top vent when I try to kill the coals after a cook?
I plan to make a cute little hat for that vent in time, to keep water out more then anything.
Loaded with 10 grey coals at 8:45 PM. On to a basket with approx 12 lbs of regular old K. 9ish I closed it up and left all three inlets open. 9:30ish I was nearing 200 and shut down the 2 caps. Held under 200 with the ball valve open full. I took one cap off and 1/2 to 3/4 on the valve. Jumped to 250 pretty quick and slowly went up to 310. At 11:00 I went out and shut the valve down to just barley open. Now we are starting to drop back to the 250 range.
This is really starting to look like a pretty cool deal. I like it already.
Here is a few pics, there is more in my album at this address.
http://picasaweb.google.com/keesfriend/UglyDrumSmoker#
OMG somehow I managed to make 2 of my pics show up and now the 3rd shows as a link. This is the way I post on all my other sites. Can anyone tell me what it is that I am doing wrong here. I use Picassa and select the hide album show link only. Simply copy and paste into the img button and the pic shows on all the other sites. That didnt work here so I entered my own
Ok its 11:45 and my temp is at 330* Now I capped the second inlet and shut the valve down to 1/2. I hope this takes it back down to 250 to 300.
Thanks for looking everyone.
Tom