U.D.S. questions

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gorillagrilla

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Jan 12, 2008
334
10
San Fransisco bay area
Lid comes off I assume to access food grate.Do you use just one grate ? If you use two, howdo you access the lower one ?Is a water pan used ? If so , how do you access ?How do you get to the fuel basket to add ?If you have to lift off top grate to access lower one, or lift out both to access water pan , or lift ENTIRE barrel to add fuel,I fail to see the improvement over my old first silo smoker !I have heard they hold temps great and they do LOOK cool, but if they are not convenient to use ,why bother ? Please educate me.
 
1 grate
no water pan
don't add fuel or wood
16 hrs on 8 lbs of fuel
Couldn't be more convenient or easy to use
Search UDS, been some decent threads on it lately.
 
UDS's have 2 primary benefits:
1.) the are inexpensive to build
2.) they are very efficient, because their's not any place for smoke or heat to escape, other than through the meat.

To answer your questions in order:
1.) I built mine to allow 2 grates. I use both when cooking things like ribs, and remove the top grate when cooking tall things like beer can chicken.
2.) to access the lower grate you have to remove the top one.
3.) No water pan is used. Another great benefit of the UDS is that the distance of the heat to the cooking surface is large enought to be an indirect cook. but you still get the flavor of the drippings vaporized. You would lose that with a water pan. With that said, when I'm cooking spatchcock chicken, I put a water pan on the lower grate and the chicken on the top.
4.) The only way to access the fuel bakset is to remove the cooking grates. However, if you build your charcoal basket properly, you will not need to add fuel more than once, if at all.
 
You can use one or two grates if you have a weber lid you can run two grates. to access the lower one you can remove the upper grate or some people have a grate that has a hinge on it so half the grate will flip up to expose the lower grate and makes it easier to get to the food below. like Bubba said you wont need to add fuel once get it started. I have a eye bolt in the center of my basket that sticks up just above the basket. I made a hook out of 1/4 inch rod 3 feet long to lift the basket out. no water pan needed like Bubba said. this was the short version.
wink.gif
 
Thanks Bubba and the rest. Fast and to the point answers as always.16 hrs on 8 lbs ?That is awsome! Practacly ANYTHING I cook on my offset will take 20 lbs of lump ! Unfortunatly I dont believe in the minion method so a drum is prob. not for me, but I am tempted cause you can only get mexican lump here and it is EXPENSIVE ! Info much apreciated !
 
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