- Dec 1, 2013
- 2
- 10
Bill here from West Plains, Missouri. Was looking the web for a solution to my heat circulating issues in my home built smoker when I ran onto this site. Looks like the site will be an asset. My hobbies are ...of course cooking, fly fishing, duck hunting, Mopars, and my Labs. 62 yrs old I am but all my girlfriends think i'm only 42. The wife knows i'm 62. God is first in our lives. The girlfriend thing is a joke. Live on a 50 acre farm in southern Missouri and i'm a general contractor in the area of building, lots of things. If I can see it I can build it. Now to my smoker. I was at an auction down in Ark. one day, years ago, and looking to buy a welder when the auctioneer started a stainless side X side commercial freezer. He started at $100 and no bids so he keeps coming down. No one wanted it so he ask if anyone would give $10 for it. You got that right. I brought it home and yep, made a smoker out of it. First I used halogen lites for heat and did a lot of smoking in it for a long time until I felt the need for some more heat. I cut a hole low in the side and set me a small wood stove off to the side and put dampers on both ends. I drilled three holes in the right side to stick thermometers at different levels. It will heat up more than needed but it can be controlled but it has to be monitored. Brother and I smoke hams, slabs of ribs, Venison Summer sausage, turkeys, Cornish hens, fish and what ever suits our fancy. We slaughter our own meat and process it into what ever we want. We buy very large hogs and process them, grind em and make Italian sausage and breakfast sausage and smoke the sides of bacon. This season we processed 19 deer and we grind it up into burger and as i'm on the boards of two charities we give it to people that can't run to Wal Mart and buy meat. It's fun for us. Spent many years working in Alaska for the RR and on the North Slope. May have already met some of ya. I'll take some pics of my smoker and get em on here for ya. Next smoking will be summer sausage. Gotta stuff 150 lbs of sausage in the next day or two. It's blending in the fridge now. I am looking for some ideas ona fan to circulate the heat inside the smoker to make it even from top to bottom. I'v got some ideas but always looking for perfection. Looking forward to seein what's on here. Glad to be here.
