I thought I would join the group since I have been reading forum threads for years. I engineered/fabricated this mammoth smoker in part thanks to some other threads on here. When I decided to build a smoker my intention was to build a reverse flow barrel smoker. The more I thought about it the more I realized that it would take up a lot of floor space and not give the greatest amount of cooking capacity. Then it dawned on me that I can go up just like I can go out with the barrel. That's when this bad idea was cemented. I framed this smoker out of 1x1 and 1x2 tube mild steel. The all of the interior and middle divider walls are 1/4 inch steel. I installed an inch of Kaowool insulation and then capped the beast with 1/8 inch steel plate. It has steel ball bearing casters, Destatco latches, and braided rope gaskets. The doors follow this same plan of 1/4 inch inside walls, 1/8 outside, and 1 inch of insulation with 1x1 framing. I had a brain fart with the gaskets, I meant to install them on the doors instead of the smoker itself; just wasn't thinking clearly that day I guess! I was so close to finishing I could almost taste it and made that mistake. The lower pan of the cooking chamber acts as a water pan and is plumbed to the outside for easy cleaning/draining. The smoke chamber is valved as well and I elected to run my Auber PID controller with a 20 cfm fan to regulate the temp. I also built dividers for the charcoal box to progressively burn the coal in the Minon method. I have 5 cooking racks so theoretically I can cook 20-25 slabs of ribs, 10 or so briskets, or a ridiculous amount of butts. The exterior dimensions are 48 inches tall plus 8 inch casters, 28 inches wide, 33 inches deep, it has over 5 MILES of welding wire in it and weighs somewhere well north of 1000 lbs. The only complaints I have with the smoker are the extreme weight and that it takes it a good hour to warm up the massive amount of steel, after that it will cook all day/night. Thanks for letting me join the group and I hope to keep learning from you fine folks....
-Micah
-Micah
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