Home made smokers on homemade trailer

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cjohnson3006

Fire Starter
Original poster
Dec 19, 2010
60
19
Butler county kansas
 I haven't been on here in a while. Thought id post pics of my smoker build. The rear is a 500 gal reverse flow. I poured 2" concrete on top of the 1/4" steel baffle. Its been built for about 6 yrs but was on single axle trailer. Made a few mods over the years. I think it works perfectly and had last 2-3 yrs.  I also added the vertical smoker in place of original smoke stack. Works awesome to do cheese and chicken. It runs about 30-40 degrees cooler than smoker itself when everything running at normal temps. I have had no problems getting this up to 400 degrees to do pizza but takes a hell of a lot of wood to get up to that temp. My bbq team name is Gunsmoke BBQ.  I cannot seem to leave well enough alone so I made it bigger. LOL..The front tank is a 250gal grill/smoker combo. The fire grates are concaves from a combine and them and the front racks can be slid side to side so i can place all in middle for grill or offset fire grates to one side and cooking grates to another to use as offset smoker. I have dampers on all air inlets and exhausts.The only thing ive cooked on the front unit so far was 6 slabs spare ribs. Worked awesome. I still need to add another rack on the front tank and make the trailer look pretty but I wanted to use several times and work bugs out first. I'm going to use an 1/8" thick piece of stainless on left hand side of main smoker to serve as work surface/fenders. Not sure yet what I'm going to do on right side or sides of trailer yet. I'm leaning towards corrugated galvanized steel for now. The original single axle was 3/4" plywood and worked great but had to paint several times every year to look good at the competitions. I made everything except for the guns. They were made from buddysbrother who works at a place with CNC plasma cutter.
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Ill try to get some better pics when sun comes out
 
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Can you tell me a little bit more about the concrete you poured on the RF plate and maybe get a close up picture?  I am just starting a build on a 200 gal oil tank using materials I have on hand and I have been worried that the steel plate I have is too thin.  I never thought of pouring concrete on it, how has that held up and how long would you say it takes to get the cook chamber to temp on a normal day (say 65F ambient temp outside)?  Very nice rig!

Thanks!

FB
 
The concrete is a 5000psi mix. Its been in there 6 years and hasn't cracked that I can tell but its also very seasoned with drippings/smoke. I have washed it several times per year. It takes about an hour to hour and a half to get up to 250/275 as that's what I typically cook at. I will say that one hot, it holds heat very well and burns less wood than what it did with only the steel plate. A 12-14hr cook takes a stack of wood the width of my truck bed stacked about 3/4 high. CJ
 
I forgot to add that my smoker is the same temp on both sides. I know reverse flow is anyway but I believe the concrete makes it even better. Kind of like a brick oven. My temp gauges are 4 foot apart
 
Very cool. Thanks for the info, I am going to look at my plate design and see if I can make this work in my project.
 
CJ, I am getting ready to install my reverse flow plate and wanted to check back with you one more time one concrete you poured on top of yours.  I have been talking with vendors about refractory cement that would be used on the bottom of a pizza oven.  That stuff is crazy expensive.  If I do go with the 5000 psi concrete I wanted to know how long you let that cure before you fired it up the first time and if you had burned the smoker at all before you poured it.  I am just trying to figure out what order to do everything in at this point.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

FB
 
i see you do you really great stuff on here glad to here concrete working good for you you use it fire box and with any wire needles keep in place thanks ray
 
Awesome build! Would love to try some gun smoke bbq!
hope to one day i have had take up bbq to make my food were i can eat it had throat cancer took voic e box out have try breat thru my hole in neck called trake can understand good on phone anyway they took all mt theeth out cause cancer so i got cook extra low slow get right to eate it . that why iam so interested on refactory castaBLE WAY I READ DONE RIGHT RHEY WORK any help what to use do app thank you ray
 
hope to one day i have had take up bbq to make my food were i can eat it had throat cancer took voic e box out have try breat thru my hole in neck called trake can understand good on phone anyway they took all mt theeth out cause cancer so i got cook extra low slow get right to eate it . that why iam so interested on refactory castaBLE WAY I READ DONE RIGHT RHEY WORK any help what to use do app thank you ray
Did you put concrete in new front pit did you use any in firebox on either one thanks ray
 
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