I'll take one for later.... never know when I need to give one, so nice to have a few extras on hand!
Home-built electric smoker (UPDATE)
- Thread starter DIYerDave
- Start date
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I'll take one for later.... never know when I need to give one, so nice to have a few extras on hand!
(UPDATE)... Between work, family, and all the rain we'd been having this past summer, I finally finished my smoker build a few weeks ago. Still waiting on decent weather to season it.
Follow along.
14 gauge mild steel for the inner structure.
Follow along.
14 gauge mild steel for the inner structure.
3" rockwool insulation on top, bottom, back, sides, and door.
Home made smoke box to hold pellet tray. Butterfly vent in bottom to control air flow thru box.
Home made smoke box to hold pellet tray. Butterfly vent in bottom to control air flow thru box.
Auber pid for main temp control and ThermoPro thru the door to monitor top and bottom temps of the cabinet.
Also the floor of the cabinet has a valve to control air flow, along with the adjustable damper on the smoke stack.
All I need to do yet is season it and start experimenting with temperature settings and smoke/airflow.
Also the floor of the cabinet has a valve to control air flow, along with the adjustable damper on the smoke stack.
All I need to do yet is season it and start experimenting with temperature settings and smoke/airflow.
Attachments
Lol. I guess I have a place to put my valuables then if it don't work as a smoker.
Wow!!
Nice Job, Dave!!
Gonna be more Awesome Smells coming from Lancaster County!!
Hoping the wind will be blowing about ENE to the Bear's Den!!
Like.
Bear
Nice Job, Dave!!
Gonna be more Awesome Smells coming from Lancaster County!!
Hoping the wind will be blowing about ENE to the Bear's Den!!
Like.
Bear
What wattage heating element did you end up going with?
I felt like you were unfairly attacked for suggesting the use of a relatively high power element.
That's a pretty big smoker, so with it fully-loaded with cool, wet meat, it will take a lot of power to get the air inside up to temperature if you're cooking while smoking.
I often run my smoker at 225 degrees F for various meat, including pork butts and ribs, etc.
I do preheat my smoker, but when a large amount of meat first goes into the smoker, if the heating element isn't powerful enough, that cold mass and the evaporative cooling from all of that moist surface, can make it take a long time for the air temp in the smoker to recover after loading in the meat.
You were wise to insulate your cabinet well. and that has to lower your power consumption.
And with a good temperature controller, I expect the smoker to work great. It will never hurt you to have a big heating element as long as you have a good controller.
I'm looking at either modifying a large pellet burning smoker to be all-electric, or maybe building one the way you did. Either way, I am planning on building it to run on 220VAC so I can use a powerful-enough heating element to achieve solid temperature control regardless of how full I fill it with wet, cold meat. If it ends up running at a 5% duty cycle once it gets the outside surfaces of the meat up to temp, where is the problem?
Anyhow, I like your design and your idea of using a rather powerful heating element.
With your PID controller, if you have an indicator for when the heating element is on, you can tell approximately what the duty cycle is during different phases of the smoke run.
As you get a chance to run your smoker, I'd like to know how much power your smoker seems to use during the different phases. That might help me choose a good heating element myself.
If I ever get mine built, it will be controlled by an output from the industrial controller system I use at my house. That system has four different PID algorithms to choose from, and it can log pretty much anything, so I'll have a record of the power to the heater. But only after I've already got it built!
Great project, and great documentation for us!
I felt like you were unfairly attacked for suggesting the use of a relatively high power element.
That's a pretty big smoker, so with it fully-loaded with cool, wet meat, it will take a lot of power to get the air inside up to temperature if you're cooking while smoking.
I often run my smoker at 225 degrees F for various meat, including pork butts and ribs, etc.
I do preheat my smoker, but when a large amount of meat first goes into the smoker, if the heating element isn't powerful enough, that cold mass and the evaporative cooling from all of that moist surface, can make it take a long time for the air temp in the smoker to recover after loading in the meat.
You were wise to insulate your cabinet well. and that has to lower your power consumption.
And with a good temperature controller, I expect the smoker to work great. It will never hurt you to have a big heating element as long as you have a good controller.
I'm looking at either modifying a large pellet burning smoker to be all-electric, or maybe building one the way you did. Either way, I am planning on building it to run on 220VAC so I can use a powerful-enough heating element to achieve solid temperature control regardless of how full I fill it with wet, cold meat. If it ends up running at a 5% duty cycle once it gets the outside surfaces of the meat up to temp, where is the problem?
Anyhow, I like your design and your idea of using a rather powerful heating element.
With your PID controller, if you have an indicator for when the heating element is on, you can tell approximately what the duty cycle is during different phases of the smoke run.
As you get a chance to run your smoker, I'd like to know how much power your smoker seems to use during the different phases. That might help me choose a good heating element myself.
If I ever get mine built, it will be controlled by an output from the industrial controller system I use at my house. That system has four different PID algorithms to choose from, and it can log pretty much anything, so I'll have a record of the power to the heater. But only after I've already got it built!
Great project, and great documentation for us!
Last edited:
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