Built My Own... w/qview

[solaryellow]

I have turned up my nose in the past to electric and propane but now that I am making my own sausage and jerky I had a need for something different. I have been plotting this one for a couple months now and finally pulled the trigger and built my own. Hopefully I will do my first batch of summer sausage and snack sticks this weekend in it. I have a couple more things I need to do but I am pretty proud of what a buddy and I did in about 9 hours.

Me drilling holes while another buddy works on cutting out some expanded metal for his UDS.

One of the sides done.

5 hours of planning, cutting, head scratching, etc yields 30 minutes of assembly.

And the semi-finished result (yes, my garage is a mess):

For the finishing touches I want to line the bottom 1/3 with some aluminum sheets I have and I am planning on bending up some more aluminum to hold the burners and remove them from the plastic they are encased in.

 

[grizandizz]

Wow!
I am a cabinet maker/woodworker and must say that looks great!
What a tight looking unit. Is that birch?
I want to build my own unit but am not familiar with the other aspects. Keep the pics coming. Great job!

 

[solaryellow]

Thanks! I am pretty new to woodworking but I spent a lot of time researching and my buddy that helped me build it overcame my other shortcomings.

 

[mossymo]

Looking good, can not wait to see more..... very interesting project.

Is your buddy going to post his UDS build also?

 

[solaryellow]

I don't think he is on here. He has had the chance to sample some of the output from my UDS and wants to build his own.

 

[scpatterson]

Awesome looking wood skills you got there...If yo cook that good you into some good queu

 

[oneshot]

That looks like a great job...Can't wait to see the finished pics!!!

 

[grizandizz]

Let us know after the first smoke if you need gaskets around the cooking door, your joinery on the wood looks great but I wonder if smoke and heat will leak out.
There are some gentlemen on here with ideas on how to plug the gaps (safely NSF) so I would be interested in hearing about your first seasoning burn.

Outstanding build! PICS

 

[solaryellow]

Will do. I am looking forward to it.

 

[solaryellow]

By the way, Forstner bits are by far easier to use than hole saws. The 48 holes we drilled would have really sucked using a hole saw.

 

[beer-b-q]

Looks Like a fine job to me...

 

[mballi3011]

Man joel you have really done a great job on your new smoker. it looks like it will hold a ton a sausage. And you want to hold a boat load of jerky too. Ps I like those twig handles that you used.

for the craftmanship.

 

[bbrock]

Very nice job looks great!!!!!!

 

[smokingohiobutcher]

Great Job! I have to give you

for looking past the petty differences that society shackles us with. You have realized that its not easy to have one type of smoker to produce all the different kinds of Q that is out there. My rig is a electric & propane hybrid, it does a great job for a lot of Q. But I 'll be the first to tell you that I can see where a UDS will do a much better job on a pork butt or brisket,and use less fuel than running on propane for 15 hours. Plus the smell from my drum is amazing!

SO Great job! And many happy snacksticks to ya!
SOB

 

[bigtrain74]

I'm jealous! I wish I had the craftsmanship to do something like this!!! Very nice job!

 

[waysideranch]

One sweet build. Congrats on the hard work.

 

[builder59]

Yes, Congratulations. Please post pics of your initial smoke and comments on how it worked.

 

[solaryellow]

I am planning on doing a test fire tomorrow. I will post up the results. Going to try one 1000 watt electric burner first and then play around with two 1000 watt burners.

 

[solaryellow]

I think today was the wrong day to test it out. Yesterday it was in the mid 60's while today it was in the mid 40's and very windy. With a single cheap 1000 watt burner I was able to get 120* and maintain it. When I added the second 1000 watt burner I was able to hit 160 and maintain which is about what I am looking for. I added some wood chips to a cast iron pan and looked for leaks and didn't find any so I am pleased with our construction. At this point I have some concerns about temps. I may pillage some burners from a stove a buddy has since I have 240v wired in my garage for a welder or I may look into a turkey fryer burner. More to come...

 

[grizandizz]

Yellow,

I was at a restaurant supply store yesterday looking for an old fridge to convert and found multiple commercial burners for sale CHEAP!
If you have one near you might want to check it out, lot's of restaurants going out of business lately, might be be able to find what you need.