Cabinet smoker

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TXN68

Newbie
Original poster
Jan 7, 2019
17
6
Abilene, TX
I acquired an industrial 2 door storage cabinet, with interior dimensions of 30" D x 60" W x 72" T, I plan on turning it into a dual use smoker for hot/cold smoking. I live in Houston and its basically always hot, but I feel confident I can use it as a cold smoker also. I have several questions and hope I could gain some insight ahead of what I already know. I generally cook/smoke, grill and sometimes burn meat on a 18" WSM, a homemade cinder block mess of oven/grill, a 22" Weber kettle grill and a falling apart gas grill. The WSM 18" is the most consistent piece I own and I use the crap out of it. However I want to have more room and more precise temperature control, hence the cabinet style vertical smoker build. So I hope that by posing a few questions, I can get some good feedback for guidance.

My plan is to insulate the cabinet and build a firebox in the lower half of the cabinet and add on a cold smoke feature such as the Smoke Daddy Big Kahuna.

#1. I have chose Rockwool Comfortboard 80 for insulation, should I insulate the interior walls and cover over the insulation or should I insulate the outside and cover the insulation?
(the thickness of the cabinet walls is 12 gauge 7/64") So this thing is not going to hold heat at all, thus the insulation.

#2. I plan on setting it up much like my WSM for hot smoking. Since this thing has 2 individual doors, I was thinking on maybe cutting down the lower 18-24" of each door and have separate access to the FB versus opening up the entire smoker. I am open to suggestions. Not sure if the picture posted or not?
Z0s-HvocpIx_.JPG

#3. Cold smoke generation. Does anyone have a preference on which type of cold smoke generator that they use that they recommend?

Thanks to any and all who offer suggestions and or ideas. I know what i see in my head, but realize the difficulty to paint that picture for all to see.
 
Last edited:
Seriously, no feedback whatsoever? Plenty of views, but not a single sentence. Perhaps I have posted in the wrong category or ????? Anyone?
 
#1. Inside. Will cut down on space, but will be more visually appealing. Seems like a bigger to accomplish though.

#2. Not having to open whole smoker will be good. You're going to need a substantial barrier between your fb area and you cc otherwise the bottom will be way hotter than the top.

#3. There are a few cold smoke generators that are in heavy use on this site. Most popular being the Amazen pellet tray. I own this, it works great. But there are other home made machine driven types that you may prefer.
 
Thanks for the pointers fivetricks. Definitely glad to have someone else’s perspective. My thoughts are to separate the bottom section for the fb as you suggest and make sure it is well built and reinforced. I was thinking of fabricating a smaller chamber for the fb, because that is a very large space for a fire and feel like I could control and concentrate the heat better with a smaller firebox.
 
Honestly you'll get better advice from people with more experience if you keep this thread bumped :-)

This forums is sorta buried on the site so it's sometimes easy to forget about checking.
 
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