- Jul 18, 2016
- 27
- 11
****UPDATE 3/21/17****
Well I've finally finished it! I ended up deciding not to pour my own countertops because it was going to be too much of a headache and I wanted to make sure it looked good. We ended up putting granite on it because it seemed to be the best for outdoor applications. I'm very happy with how it turned out. For anyone who is looking to build something like this, I always wanted to mention where I sourced my products because that seemed to be the most difficult part.
Brick and Firebrick - A local brick supplier. Firebrick was about $1.69 ea.
Mortar - Home Depot, white, type S
Refractory Mortar (for firebrick) - Rutland #610 https://rutland.com/p/104/refractory-cement
Steel - Metal Supermarkets https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/ (Note: it's much cheaper to contact the store for a quote than to buy online)
Damper, spiral handles, temp gauge - BBQ Smoker Supply http://bbqsmokersupply.com/
Propane Grill - Home Depot
The trays and doors are hard to source, so I ended up making them myself. I bought a MIG welder from Harbor Freight and a Dewalt Chop Saw and taught myself to do it. It's not that hard. Metal Supermarkets will cut your steel to your dimensions which is hugely helpful. I used a drill with a 6" hole cutter from Home Depot (I forget the brand) for the chimney. I used an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel to cut a rectangle in the door for the intake damper. Metal Supermarkets wanted too much $ to do it for me. I attached the metal frames to the brick using Tapcon screws. I highly recommend a hammer drill for this!
So far I've done some ribs as a test and a couple briskets. Using all wood tastes a lot better than what I was getting off of my WSM. The amount of space in this thing is amazing!
****UPDATE 2/27/17****
I have mostly finished the smoker side with the exception of the counters. I'm now thinking I may purchase the counters instead of DIYing them. That's an important part to look nice. The smoker has been siting for about 30 days. Over the course of a few days I made bigger fires. I then smoked some ribs on Saturday. Everything turned out great! I'm learning to use this smoker and how to regulate the temperature.
Now I'm working on the other part where I'll put in a built-in stainless propane grill.
****UPDATE 1/25/17****
I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm a little bit further along than this. I've made the metal trays for the firebox and the grill and the firebrick in the smoke box is a couple courses higher. Right now I'm debating on how I'm going to finish off the top of the smoker. I have a steel plate that I'll use in which I've welded a 6" chimney and damper on to. Just need to figure out how to make the brick look nice. Then I need to make the doors.
****UPDATE 12/29/16****
Been making some progress.
****UPDATE 12/13/16****
I ordered almost all of the material I'll need and got started. This is my first time laying brick, so it's slow goings at first. I found the hardest part of the project so far was figuring out how to cut a stupid brick consistently. I don't know how people do it with chisels or trowels. I ended up welding together a jig to hold a brick and score it with a masonry bladed circular saw. Then I hit it a few times with a cold chisel. Takes a little longer, but it's clean and consistent.
Here's a few pictures before I cleaned up the brick.
****UPDATE 12/8/16****
Drew up some scaled drawings. Did all of the planning I could. I'm not sure there is anything else I can plan, so I went ahead and ordered the materials. From the scaled drawings I was able to see that I was probably going to be a little shy on the brick count, so I went ahead and ordered a new cube. Our house is only 3 years old so the brick is still available. I also found firebrick available for $1.69 ea from the same brick supplier. I was not looking forward to paying the $5 ea that the big box stores wanted so this is much better.
I've already decided on a couple slight modifications to the scaled drawings, but I can work through those as I build. Drawing it out like this really helped me catch a lot of design decisions I wouldn't have otherwise. Probably going to go with 1.5" thick counters, shrink the overhang to 1 or 1.5", and cut back on the depth of the charcoal grill.
Here is a link to the calculator I used to design it. I checked out some custom built steel vertical smokers to see what their dimensions are. I started with what I wanted for the smoke chamber and worked backwards from there.
http://feldoncentral.com/bbqcalcula....00,6.37&fi=0,0,0,19.20,0&fc=8.08,11.42,51.20
***************************
I figured I should go ahead and start a thread since the wife has green lighted this project.
I've been researching on and off for a while. Love this forum and all the ideas and info I've gotten from it. As everyone knows, there's not a lot out there!
I'll introduce myself. I live in the Texas in the 'burbs. I have a decent sized covered patio. It was builder installed so it is part of the foundation. I currently use a Weber Smokey Mountain, a small charcoal grill, and a small propane grill. Looking to upgrade to something nicer. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg, so that's why I want to build it myself. I'm an IT guy by trade but consider myself fairly handy. That being said, there are going to be a lot of firsts on this project. I've never laid brick, never welded, and never poured concrete (counters).
We have some extra brick from building our house that I'll use. I've decided to fabricate my own doors and use concrete counters to save on cost.
The main questions I have at this point are:
- I see a lot of people use cinder block, brick, and fire brick. Is cinder block mainly for the strength? I've only designed the outside of the build, haven't thought too much about the insides structurally.
- Is it ok to have fire brick butted up against another type of block? I saw someone say on this forum that you should leave a 1.5 inch gap between the 2 due to fire brick swelling.
- Ok to use regular mortar in the hot areas, or do I need the fire clay stuff?
- Is chimney length a big concern? I'm doing a vertical smoke chamber and the calculator says that counts as part of the chimney. Not totally sure what to add
- Since my patio is covered, I'm thinking about putting a 45* angle on the chimney to vent it out from the eave. Thoughts?
- How are people closing off the top of their firebox and smoke chamber? I haven't really seen anyone use fire brick, rather just some various techniques. I'm thinking about using steel plate or a concrete plate, but I think steel will be more of a sure thing. Am I missing anything?
Here are some preliminary sketches I made on an airplane ride last week. The POST is one brick post of my covered patio.
PS, thanks Wes for getting this forum created and being active in helping everyone out!
Well I've finally finished it! I ended up deciding not to pour my own countertops because it was going to be too much of a headache and I wanted to make sure it looked good. We ended up putting granite on it because it seemed to be the best for outdoor applications. I'm very happy with how it turned out. For anyone who is looking to build something like this, I always wanted to mention where I sourced my products because that seemed to be the most difficult part.
Brick and Firebrick - A local brick supplier. Firebrick was about $1.69 ea.
Mortar - Home Depot, white, type S
Refractory Mortar (for firebrick) - Rutland #610 https://rutland.com/p/104/refractory-cement
Steel - Metal Supermarkets https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/ (Note: it's much cheaper to contact the store for a quote than to buy online)
Damper, spiral handles, temp gauge - BBQ Smoker Supply http://bbqsmokersupply.com/
Propane Grill - Home Depot
The trays and doors are hard to source, so I ended up making them myself. I bought a MIG welder from Harbor Freight and a Dewalt Chop Saw and taught myself to do it. It's not that hard. Metal Supermarkets will cut your steel to your dimensions which is hugely helpful. I used a drill with a 6" hole cutter from Home Depot (I forget the brand) for the chimney. I used an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel to cut a rectangle in the door for the intake damper. Metal Supermarkets wanted too much $ to do it for me. I attached the metal frames to the brick using Tapcon screws. I highly recommend a hammer drill for this!
So far I've done some ribs as a test and a couple briskets. Using all wood tastes a lot better than what I was getting off of my WSM. The amount of space in this thing is amazing!
****UPDATE 2/27/17****
I have mostly finished the smoker side with the exception of the counters. I'm now thinking I may purchase the counters instead of DIYing them. That's an important part to look nice. The smoker has been siting for about 30 days. Over the course of a few days I made bigger fires. I then smoked some ribs on Saturday. Everything turned out great! I'm learning to use this smoker and how to regulate the temperature.
Now I'm working on the other part where I'll put in a built-in stainless propane grill.
****UPDATE 1/25/17****
I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm a little bit further along than this. I've made the metal trays for the firebox and the grill and the firebrick in the smoke box is a couple courses higher. Right now I'm debating on how I'm going to finish off the top of the smoker. I have a steel plate that I'll use in which I've welded a 6" chimney and damper on to. Just need to figure out how to make the brick look nice. Then I need to make the doors.
****UPDATE 12/29/16****
Been making some progress.
****UPDATE 12/13/16****
I ordered almost all of the material I'll need and got started. This is my first time laying brick, so it's slow goings at first. I found the hardest part of the project so far was figuring out how to cut a stupid brick consistently. I don't know how people do it with chisels or trowels. I ended up welding together a jig to hold a brick and score it with a masonry bladed circular saw. Then I hit it a few times with a cold chisel. Takes a little longer, but it's clean and consistent.
Here's a few pictures before I cleaned up the brick.
****UPDATE 12/8/16****
Drew up some scaled drawings. Did all of the planning I could. I'm not sure there is anything else I can plan, so I went ahead and ordered the materials. From the scaled drawings I was able to see that I was probably going to be a little shy on the brick count, so I went ahead and ordered a new cube. Our house is only 3 years old so the brick is still available. I also found firebrick available for $1.69 ea from the same brick supplier. I was not looking forward to paying the $5 ea that the big box stores wanted so this is much better.
I've already decided on a couple slight modifications to the scaled drawings, but I can work through those as I build. Drawing it out like this really helped me catch a lot of design decisions I wouldn't have otherwise. Probably going to go with 1.5" thick counters, shrink the overhang to 1 or 1.5", and cut back on the depth of the charcoal grill.
Here is a link to the calculator I used to design it. I checked out some custom built steel vertical smokers to see what their dimensions are. I started with what I wanted for the smoke chamber and worked backwards from there.
http://feldoncentral.com/bbqcalcula....00,6.37&fi=0,0,0,19.20,0&fc=8.08,11.42,51.20
***************************
I figured I should go ahead and start a thread since the wife has green lighted this project.
I've been researching on and off for a while. Love this forum and all the ideas and info I've gotten from it. As everyone knows, there's not a lot out there!
I'll introduce myself. I live in the Texas in the 'burbs. I have a decent sized covered patio. It was builder installed so it is part of the foundation. I currently use a Weber Smokey Mountain, a small charcoal grill, and a small propane grill. Looking to upgrade to something nicer. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg, so that's why I want to build it myself. I'm an IT guy by trade but consider myself fairly handy. That being said, there are going to be a lot of firsts on this project. I've never laid brick, never welded, and never poured concrete (counters).
We have some extra brick from building our house that I'll use. I've decided to fabricate my own doors and use concrete counters to save on cost.
The main questions I have at this point are:
- I see a lot of people use cinder block, brick, and fire brick. Is cinder block mainly for the strength? I've only designed the outside of the build, haven't thought too much about the insides structurally.
- Is it ok to have fire brick butted up against another type of block? I saw someone say on this forum that you should leave a 1.5 inch gap between the 2 due to fire brick swelling.
- Ok to use regular mortar in the hot areas, or do I need the fire clay stuff?
- Is chimney length a big concern? I'm doing a vertical smoke chamber and the calculator says that counts as part of the chimney. Not totally sure what to add
- Since my patio is covered, I'm thinking about putting a 45* angle on the chimney to vent it out from the eave. Thoughts?
- How are people closing off the top of their firebox and smoke chamber? I haven't really seen anyone use fire brick, rather just some various techniques. I'm thinking about using steel plate or a concrete plate, but I think steel will be more of a sure thing. Am I missing anything?
Here are some preliminary sketches I made on an airplane ride last week. The POST is one brick post of my covered patio.
PS, thanks Wes for getting this forum created and being active in helping everyone out!
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