Building A smoker

[ryan mcquigge]

For quite sometime I have wanted to try my hand at smoking meats. Recently my wife found me instructions on building an easy smoker online. It starts with a 48 gallon drum, door cut out and metal wire rings placed inside as shelves.

Everything with that went okay and the construction is just about finished, however there are no heating/cooking instructions. With a tall style smoker, would the recommendation be to light a small fire inside the drum and slowly add wood to it or would it be to place it over some bricks, light a fire under it and place wood chips inside the drum on the hot bottom to make smoke.

Any suggestions experienced smokers can give me would be wonderful.

Ryan

 

[s2k9k]

Hi Ryan! I want to let you know i moved this thread to the "Smoker Builds" forum, I think you will get a lot more exposure to the topic at hand.

I'm not really sure of what kind of smoker you built, it kind of sounds like a UDS, some pictures would really help so we know what you have and the placement of the racks and heat source you are asking about. We really want to help but I think we need more info.

I see this is your first post here, when you get a minute would you do us a favor and go to "Roll Call" and introduce yourself so we can get to know you and give you a proper welcome, also would you add your location to your profile, we like knowing where you are when we talk to you, Thanks!

 

[ryan mcquigge]

Thanks Dave. I didn't realize it was in the wrong spot.

I needed to Google what a UDS was but yes. That is what I have. As for pictures I don't have any yet as it is not finished yet. I can't finish until I know the best place to put the heat source. If I put the heat source inside I need to put a control valve on it to control the air and thus the heat. If I put the heat under it I believe I need to put some way of venting smoke and releasing heat so it doesn't get too hot. The instructions aren't very technical and lack alot of explanation. Just some bad pictures.

Sorry if this doesn't help much

 

[jrod62]

best thing you can do is read up on UDS. Lot of good info on here. also on utube.

I take it you will be using charcoal for the heat . you will need to build a charcoal basket out of  expanded metal.

fill the basket with charcoal and wood mix in. then lite about 10 Briquets . this will burn up to 20 hours without having to add wood or charcoal.

hope this helps

 

[ryan mcquigge]

I wasn't considering going charcoal at all. I was either going to build a "fire place" out of cinder blocks and set the drum on top, heat the bottom of the barrel and put wood chips inside, or make a small wood fire inside and just slowly add wood to it.

I take it from your comments that neither of these ways is the best way to do it.

 

[trailboss58]

go for it. i have built cookers out of old oil drums,55gallon drums,propanetanks,and a old freig. main thing is have fun.

 

[ribwizzard]

If you have an area to build a pit with bricks, I would do that and build the fire underneath as you stated. Dill some 3/4" holes around the out diameter of the bottom and this will allow some of the smoke to enter the chamber and you will not have to worry about adding the wood chips. The disadvantage; by having no way to control the air to the fire in the pit, you will have heat control issues inside the cooking chamber. You should check out on line how they make the double barrel smokers out of two drums. They are easy to build and there are some places that actually sell kits that include the doors and all, pretty cheap.

Just some ideals