Hi there. I have a 4' tall piece of pipe in my backyard that is 20" in diameter and made of 5/16" carbon steel (see pic). It's begging me to turn it into a smoker. I was originally going to build an offset smoker with it, but space is limited at my home, and I've determined that a vertical will fit much better on my patio. There are plenty of DIY instructions for building offsets, but very few when it comes to building verticals. I have some questions and I was wondering if anyone in this forum might be able to help me with them.
First off, due to space limitations, I won't be putting a fire box on the outside of this smoker. It'll need to go in the bottom, like a UDS. How should I separate the firebox from the smoke chamber? My plan is to cut two different doors, one for the smoke chamber and one for the firebox, and then create a divider between the two chambers. And maybe place a water tray on it? So should I maybe weld in a circular steel plate as a divider, leaving gaps on the sides for the smoke to pass through? Or maybe use a perforated, steel circle as the divider? Any suggestions would be helpful. I can't find a lot of info out there about installing fire boxes into a vertical smoker.
Second, how big of a smokestack should go on the top? The store-bought vertical cabinets seem to have no chimneys on them, but all the DYI verticals I see (usually made from propane cylinders) have smokestacks. I was originally going to attach a smokestack that is 4" in diameter and 16" tall on the top, just to get the smoke up and away from eye level. But there was no rhyme or reason to those dimensions, I just picked them out of thin air. Any thoughts on this?
And lastly, if my pipe is 4' tall, how much of that should I allocate to the smoke chamber, and how much to the firebox?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
First off, due to space limitations, I won't be putting a fire box on the outside of this smoker. It'll need to go in the bottom, like a UDS. How should I separate the firebox from the smoke chamber? My plan is to cut two different doors, one for the smoke chamber and one for the firebox, and then create a divider between the two chambers. And maybe place a water tray on it? So should I maybe weld in a circular steel plate as a divider, leaving gaps on the sides for the smoke to pass through? Or maybe use a perforated, steel circle as the divider? Any suggestions would be helpful. I can't find a lot of info out there about installing fire boxes into a vertical smoker.
Second, how big of a smokestack should go on the top? The store-bought vertical cabinets seem to have no chimneys on them, but all the DYI verticals I see (usually made from propane cylinders) have smokestacks. I was originally going to attach a smokestack that is 4" in diameter and 16" tall on the top, just to get the smoke up and away from eye level. But there was no rhyme or reason to those dimensions, I just picked them out of thin air. Any thoughts on this?
And lastly, if my pipe is 4' tall, how much of that should I allocate to the smoke chamber, and how much to the firebox?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Attachments
Last edited:
