I put my grill down about 9". Not much worry about meat burning in a UDS. I can fit everything we like to cook in it; a turkey is a bit tall for it, but A lid off a
Weber Kettle fits nicely. One big difference in mine, is that I drilled my exhaust holes in the top rim of the barrel. They serve as exhaust, but also so I can run rebar rods thru, so I can do larger quantities of Chicken or tri tips, and the rods allow me to hang sausage over them to smoke them. The exhaust holes are 1/2", rebar is 3/8", and I use 3/4" ceramic magnets to close them off, which allows to me to shut down the barrel when I'm done cooking. I use Lump, so I just pull the fire basket out, shake the ash out, and we're good to go.
When I was building the UDS, I was cruising the aisles of the hardware store, looking for something to use as an ash catcher. They had a disposable BBQ, and the size of it was perfect for ash catching duty. I punched 2 holes in it, and used a length of baling wire as a handle. I didn't expect it to last as long as it has, but after 2 years and many cooks, its still working fine. No pics of that.
My fire basket is a 1 ft wide length of expanded metal, that I wrapped around a 5lb propane tank, to get a round shape, bolted it, and stole a metal handle of a 5 gallon plastic bucket.
I did 4 3/4 pipe nipples, one has a gate valve.
When I built this last barrel, I bought 2. I hadn't built a UDS style, but its basically just drilling holes. I figured If I really screwed it up, I would just unbolt the hardware and transfer it all to a new barrel. But, the only mod I did, after completing it, was to drop the grill from 3" below the rim to 9".. I wanted to be able to fit disposable pans in side.
