Turning a Pellet Grill into a cabinet smoker

[Bigern26]

Thinking I might try building a cabinet smoker out of my pellet grill.
I recently upgraded our pellet grill and have a Pit Boss 820D just sitting around.
My thought is to cut the grill all the way around horizontally then weld up a 3/4" square tube frame to go on top of it and skin both sides in steel. Build a door and have a cabinet smoker. I would build a diffuser plate to go over the burner and have a water bath over that.

Thinking inside dimensions would be approx 31" wide x 24" deep and 36" high.
I am building primarily for Venison bacon, bacon, summer sausage, snack sticks, and pork butts.

Does anyone see any issues?

 

[mike243]

It wont do very low temps for sausage, to hot and you will run the fat out and have dry crumbly sausages

 

[Bigern26]

It wont do very low temps for sausage, to hot and you will run the fat out and have dry crumbly sausages

Can you elaborate as to why? Would it be because of making it larger? I know by changing my p setting on the grill I can smoke at 150 no problem. I have made hundreds of pounds of venison bacon, summer sausage, and sticks on the grill over the years.

 

[mike243]

well most of my sausage recipe's calls for 120 then 130 ect till I reach 160, if it works for you no problem, making it bigger wont hurt anything other than more pellets used.

 

[Fueling Around]

Interesting idea.
What diffuser plate does the stock PB have?

I'm thinking about attaching my Big Chief smoker to the exhaust port on my MB pellet pooper to make a vertical chamber for hanging sausage and sticks.