Fridge Conversion & Propane

[meat hunter]

Hello all. Todd here in Minnesota. I am converting an old 1940's fridge into a smoker. I originally wanted to go electric, but started to think the high wattage needed would get sorta spendy after a while. I like the idea of propane. I have seen that a lot of commercially sold units have a btu rating around 20,000btu's. I had an idea of using the 2 elements from an old coleman camp stove. Combined, they put out 22,000 btu's. One for heat, one for smoke. Now I know nothing about converting this so any input you have is most welcomed. I want to make the smoke/heat area under the fridge where the compressor was and pipe the smoke and heat into the fridge. That way I would not have to open the door to reload wood chips. What do you think?
Thanks

 

[davidmcg]

I take it you already have a fridge for this project. No big deal, after you pull the compressor and all the other junk out, just cut a whole for the heat to go through. Of course you'll have to have the burners all enclosed somehow, so you'll have to make an enclosure for them.

Of course if you don't already have a fridge, you might try to find one with the freezer door on the bottom and put your burners in there. Thats what I am using, although mine is intended to be a lump/charcoal burner.

Have you done a search yet here for fidge smoker? Seems like somebody else converted one with propane and posted pics here.

Here is a link for a propane smoker. Its a file cabinet conversion but it may give you an idea or two;

 

[meat hunter]

Yeah I did some searching on here and found a bit of info and some pix. But as you know, we had that meltdown with the server last week and any posts I made are now gone as are any responses I had. Yeah I have the fridge, I was planning on sheering up some 10ga sheet and making a box to go under the fridge and basically run a pipe up thru the floor of the fridge so smoke and heat have a place to go. Then of course a vent on top. These old fridges are getting harder to come by and dont want to make any mistakes so I am taking all ideas into consideration. Thanks.

 

[davidmcg]

Sounds good, looking like you have it all and just doing some double checking. Ain't a thing wrong with that. As you said they are getting hard to come by. I put my vent right top dead center of mine. Be sure when you make measurements for centering to do it from the inside. If you measure from the outside, things will be off just enough that it will effect air flow. I saw a really nice fridge conversion to propane a while back at a competition and the guy used stainless on is vent stack. Pretty nice, he had it all painted up in fire engine red.

You know 90% of the fun and pride of this is making it yourself. It definitely helps boost the bragging rights.