- Sep 20, 2010
- 12
- 10
Hello everyone! Looking for some tips and advice before I jump into building my first smoker.
First a little background. About 7 years ago a friend gave me a smoker that he had built. And all honesty it didn't work at all how he had it built. In the third picture I'm trying to give an idea of how he had it built. The smoker was built in a vertical fashion, sort of. The firebox was in the bottom and between the firebox and the cooking chamber above he built a water pan that completely sealed off the firebox from the cooking chamber, except for a couple pipes that took smoke from the back of the fire box up into the cooking chamber (I've already removed these pipes so they're not visible in the pictures) and then he had two exhausts out the top. Long story short it was terrible. I tried making some modifications to make it work but it just didn't. It's just been sitting for quite a few years and I've always thought I want to make it into an offset smoker. So I'm going to give it a try (I work for the government and am unemployed at the moment with the shutdown. So I have some time on my hands
). It's just too much metal to waste.
I'm pretty inexperienced and don't have a lot of resources so I want to make use of as much of it as possible, understanding that it may not be ideal. Here are my thoughts:
First, I'm going to cut the water pan completely out. But if I just take the water pan out it leaves a very large cooking chamber.
As the smoker sits right now it is 22 in wide, 36 in deep, and 36 in tall. So I want to cut a section of it out. The section I'm going to take out is marked with an x in the picture. I'll then weld the top to the remaining bottom. This will leave it 22 in wide, 36 in deep, and about 22 in tall.
You can see from the pictures that he built the doors on the end. I'm going to leave the door on the top to access the cooking area and I'll put the firebox on the opposite end of the door.
I've always thought that a reverse flow would be awesome so that's how I want to build it. My very rough idea is shown in the picture with the drawing.
I'd like to use the door from the bottom and the left over metal to make the firebox. My welding and fabrication skills are minimal but I'd like to give it a try. It might look like Frankensmoker by the time I'm done but oh well.
I'd like to know first of all if it even seems feasible. I think I can get it done. But will also like any comments as to how I could make it the best possible. I'm open to any and all suggestions. I hope what I've explained makes sense, if not please let me know and I'll try to explain better. Thanks in advance!
First a little background. About 7 years ago a friend gave me a smoker that he had built. And all honesty it didn't work at all how he had it built. In the third picture I'm trying to give an idea of how he had it built. The smoker was built in a vertical fashion, sort of. The firebox was in the bottom and between the firebox and the cooking chamber above he built a water pan that completely sealed off the firebox from the cooking chamber, except for a couple pipes that took smoke from the back of the fire box up into the cooking chamber (I've already removed these pipes so they're not visible in the pictures) and then he had two exhausts out the top. Long story short it was terrible. I tried making some modifications to make it work but it just didn't. It's just been sitting for quite a few years and I've always thought I want to make it into an offset smoker. So I'm going to give it a try (I work for the government and am unemployed at the moment with the shutdown. So I have some time on my hands
). It's just too much metal to waste.I'm pretty inexperienced and don't have a lot of resources so I want to make use of as much of it as possible, understanding that it may not be ideal. Here are my thoughts:
First, I'm going to cut the water pan completely out. But if I just take the water pan out it leaves a very large cooking chamber.
As the smoker sits right now it is 22 in wide, 36 in deep, and 36 in tall. So I want to cut a section of it out. The section I'm going to take out is marked with an x in the picture. I'll then weld the top to the remaining bottom. This will leave it 22 in wide, 36 in deep, and about 22 in tall.
You can see from the pictures that he built the doors on the end. I'm going to leave the door on the top to access the cooking area and I'll put the firebox on the opposite end of the door.
I've always thought that a reverse flow would be awesome so that's how I want to build it. My very rough idea is shown in the picture with the drawing.
I'd like to use the door from the bottom and the left over metal to make the firebox. My welding and fabrication skills are minimal but I'd like to give it a try. It might look like Frankensmoker by the time I'm done but oh well.
I'd like to know first of all if it even seems feasible. I think I can get it done. But will also like any comments as to how I could make it the best possible. I'm open to any and all suggestions. I hope what I've explained makes sense, if not please let me know and I'll try to explain better. Thanks in advance!
