Building a smoker in Utah

[GavinP]

Please comment or add suggestions if you have ideas.

My implements of destruction: Weber large kettle, Blackstone propane griddle, Fiesta large propane Barbecue, Rectec RT-B380 Bullseye wood pellet grill, Smokehouse Little Chief.

For the smoker I have two cabinets, each with a single large door and a small half barrel firebox mounted low on the left side cabinet. Each cabinet is 24-3/4” wide x 41” tall x 20” deep. The legs have been cut down to 7 “ and each cabinet has a 4” square steel exhaust on top rear left side. These are well made with thick steel.

My plan is to detach the firebox and cover the hole in the cobinet, insulate the cabinets with rockwool and bend some thin sheet metal to cover the insulation. I was looking at building a smoke generator, but found a Chinese one I like. It has several names (Marada & Minneer are two). The new version is on sale right now for $90. It says it can smoke for 14-16 hours on wood pelets. I am thinking of using it for smoke using wood pellets and adding a circular propane burner covered by a ½” round steel plate in the bottom of a cabinet connected to a temperature controlled valve. That way I can cold smoke using smoke generator only, add heat with propane burner for regular smoking and I can remotely monitor the temperature. I don’t want to be getting up every hour to fuss with the smoke!

 

[ifitsdeadsmokeit]

if using gas for heat, be sure to have a safety shutoff with thermocouple to sense when the fire goes out and cuts the gas flow. dont want your new smoker blowing up. yours is small enough chamber, you could use electric heat element. there are a few good threads on here for using a PID to control the heat with a solenoid valve to regulate the gas flow.

 

[GavinP]

Electric heat is much easier for me and I have several PID controllers (my background is in automation), but I havent run power to the pavilion yet. I was going to run a small circuit out there to run some LED light strips in the rafters, one outlet and an electric fan for summer. Electric heat uses quite a bit of power. Most hot plates are 15 amps add in a 100 foot run and your using large gauge wire=$$$. I will compare costs of that vs a few solar panels, a charge controller, batteries and an inverter. I think the costs will be similar.

 

[GavinP]

if using gas for heat, be sure to have a safety shutoff with thermocouple to sense when the fire goes out and cuts the gas flow. dont want your new smoker blowing up. yours is small enough chamber, you could use electric heat element. there are a few good threads on here for using a PID to control the heat with a solenoid valve to regulate the gas flow.

Thank you. That is alway a good reminder. Luckily the valve assembly I have is mechanical and contains a seperate safety circuit for flame monitoring.

 

[GavinP]

Please

disregard. I figured that one out.

 

[GavinP]

Please comment or add suggestions if you have ideas.

My implements of destruction: Weber large kettle, Blackstone propane griddle, Fiesta large propane Barbecue, Rectec RT-B380 Bullseye wood pellet grill, Smokehouse Little Chief.

For the smoker I have two cabinets, each with a single large door and a small half barrel firebox mounted low on the left side cabinet. Each cabinet is 24-3/4” wide x 41” tall x 20” deep. The legs have been cut down to 7 “ and each cabinet has a 4” square steel exhaust on top rear left side. These are well made with thick steel.

My plan is to detach the firebox and cover the hole in the cobinet, insulate the cabinets with rockwool and bend some thin sheet metal to cover the insulation. I was looking at building a smoke generator, but found a Chinese one I like. It has several names (Marada & Minneer are two). The new version is on sale right now for $90. It says it can smoke for 14-16 hours on wood pelets. I am thinking of using it for smoke using wood pellets and adding a circular propane burner covered by a ½” round steel plate in the bottom of a cabinet connected to a temperature controlled valve. That way I can cold smoke using smoke generator only, add heat with propane burner for regular smoking and I can remotely monitor the temperature. I don’t want to be getting up every hour to fuss with the smoke!

I received the smoker. The quality is better than I expected. I added pellets past the ignition holes and fired it up. It worked well. After about 3 hours I turned it off and let it cool overnight. The next day I dismantled it and cleaned it. I will be making a modification of mounting a jar below the smoke tower to fill with condensate and also running the smoke hose to a jar for the same purpose.