Ugly Drum Smoker

Holes and magnets and valves oh my!

Hi guys.. thought to check in every now and then. I started on this thread in December and built a UDS and have been using it on average once a week since. Find my other posts to see pictures of my variations of the same smoker. Great thing about UDS is you can just change one and fix it without having to start over.

REGARDING AIR CONTROL - I have been using the pipes and ball valve. But I'm undoing that design because I want the intake to be evenly coming in so the coals burn all around, not just in the 1 area. Initially I drilled three 1 inch holes at bottom for intake (using a simple 1 inch hole saw with a pilot bit, no need for the step bit.) This fits exactly a 3/4 inch black iron nipple. On 2 of them I just put caps and undo when needed, and 1 of them I have a ball valve.

BUT I'M CHANGING THE DESIGN. I've been operating with those as intakes long enough now. Instead what I'm going to do (with same smoker) is plug up those 1 inch holes and instead drill smaller holes and use magnets. The reason for this is to be able to control the intake, but also allow the air intake to come in from all sides of the bottom. If only from 1 or 2 holes, then the charcoal tends to just burn in that area, and over long burns requires me to close one and open another port. The pipes that I have there get rusty. I usually leave smoker in garage, but sometimes I smoke in the rain (under covered deck) but the moisture in the air is enough to rust the pipes. Plus, it makes the smoker lighter.. as I move it around a lot.

LET'S DO SOME MATH. At the end of this message and also attached is an XLS spreadsheet with circle area calculations. It's showing how many and how big holes you'd need to do the same job as the 3/4 inch holes that are most common. Area of a circle is Radius times Radius times PI. (I'd write it differently if I had a piece of paper to show you.) Radius of course, if half the diameter. PI is ~3.14.

CenTech: Regarding your smoke taste issues.. DON'T GIVE UP! Simple things can make it REALLY YUMMY! FIRST THING YOU NEED TO DO.. is Season your smoker! (not sure I caught you indicating you did.) Rub it down with some cooking oil all over the inside, or much easier to spray PAM. Then light a full chimney of coals, and when they are lit, dump it in the smoker's fire basket. (YOU MUST USE A FIRE BASKET to cook in a barrel.) Let it burn for a bit, close it up and let the smoker sit at 350 degrees for at least 30 mins. Then you can extinguish by closing all intakes and exhaust.

AFTER YOU DID THAT.... Get a bag of plain charcoal briquettes, not the lump charcoal. (They are easier to learn with.) Dump maybe 1/3 of a large bag into the fire basket, UN-LIT!!! Then use newspapers and a charcoal chimney starter, and fill up the chimney JUST HALF WAY, no more! Light the chimney. WAIT WAIT WAIT for the coals in the chimney to finish burning flames so they are nice and white. THEN pour them on top of the un-lit coals in the smoker, place 1 or 2 CHUNKS of wood for your flavoring, QUICKLY CLOSE THE LID. By the way, put one wood piece on coals already let, and put the other piece on coals not quite lit yet; it will make for hours of hassle-free smoking. At this point maybe 75% of your intakes should be open, and 100% of your exhaust. When you are mentally ready open the lid and put your food in, your food rack, etc, and close the lid. You probably want to cut your intake to 50%, but always just leave your exhaust at 100%. This configuration should easily allow you to smoke for 10+ hours without adding a single thing to the fire basket. Just controlling the air flow. I've done smokes with 1/3 to 1/2 a bag (depending on size of bag) for 14 hours. And I've also done them overnight several times. Learned from some mistakes, but have no worry about doing it. But I won't do that with a brisket.. that requires some attention during the day to make sure it doesn't get anywhere close to 250 degrees even.

And by the way, start with a pork shoulder, not a brisket. Briskets (as Texans know) takes some practice. Pork shoulder can be totally messed up during cooking but can still be fixed and turn out super!

Now, Regarding exhaust, only the one 2inch hole at the top is needed. You can drill holes and other things in the lid or on the sides (like I did) but do the math to make sure you're at least providing enough circular area as a 2inch hole. I happen to have created a 3 inch hole on the side and have a little chimney pipe to create a nice draft which allows for more moisture (air inside smoker does not sit too long to dry out) and does a good job of never suffocating and able to run at high temps if I need it. (smoking chicken).

And here are the Circle Area calculations mentioned earlier:

Diameter - Radius - Pi - Area Inches squared - Number of holes - Total Area Inches squared - Notes

WITH THE 1 INCH HOLES AND THE 3/4 INCH PIPES AND VALVES, YOU END UP WITH THE 0.75 INCH DIAMETER
0.75 0.375 3.14 0.44 3 1.33 Old Intakes using 3/4 inch pipes
0.75 0.375 3.14 0.44 2 0.88 This represents closing 1 hole, leaving the other 2 fully open.
0.75 0.375 3.14 0.44 1.5 0.66 one open and ball valve half way - ideal intake for 225 cooking - Results in about 0.66 inches sq.
0.75 0.375 3.14 0.44 1.25 0.55 This represents 1 hole open and the ball valve at like 25%.

LET'S SAY WE DRILL 1/2 INCH HOLES AND USE MAGNETS INSTEAD OF THE EXPENSIVE PIPES AND VALVES
0.5 0.25 3.14 0.20 7 1.37 With 1/2 inch holes (no pipes), it would take 7 to at least get as much as 3 of the 3/4 inch holes.
0.5 0.25 3.14 0.20 8 1.57 7 holes is goofy to leave, so let's make it 8 holes. 2 holes on 4 sides of the bottom. 2 inches off the ground
0.5 0.25 3.14 0.20 4 0.79 With magnets, 4 completely covered holes is a tad more intake than the 1 and half of the 3/4 inch holes
0.5 0.25 3.14 0.20 3 0.59 Covering 1 more hole completely is just a tad more than the 1 and 25%.
0.5 0.25 3.14 0.20 3.5 0.69 So maybe you'll have a reason to cover a hole 50%. That should be easy with a magnet.

OR MAYBE YOU PREFER FINER CONTROL. SAY 3/8 INCH, THAT'S 0.375 INCHES
0.375 0.1875 3.14 0.11 12 1.33 You need EXACTLY 4 times as many holes. So maybe you do 4 sets of 3 holes, or 3 sets of 4 holes.
0.375 0.1875 3.14 0.11 6 0.66 Covering half of these holes gives you the same intake as the one 3/4 open and ball valve half way. But you still maintain intake coming in evenly through the bottom.

JUST FOR COMPARISON, HERE IT IS FOR 1/4 INCH HOLES
0.25 0.125 3.14 0.05 27 1.33 WAY TOO MANY HOLES.
0.25 0.125 3.14 0.05 13 0.64

Why so many smaller holes in general, you may ask? Because you're absolutely right about it being hard to find just the right partial coverage of a hole with a magnet. But if you have small holes, it's easy to cover a hole completely. If you have a large square or rectangular magnet, you can just place it over neighboring holes to cover more than one. And I'm talking about one of those flexible magnets, like you might put on your refrigerator. Maybe some business send them to you for advertisement. They are usually not rigid magnets.

I've only done a couple of cooks but I can't say I have noticed the charcoal only burning on the side with the air intake open. By the end of my cooks the majority of the basket is white and evenly lit.

LoveBBQ said:

I've only done a couple of cooks but I can't say I have noticed the charcoal only burning on the side with the air intake open. By the end of my cooks the majority of the basket is white and evenly lit.

Click to expand...

Oh.. maybe it has to do with dimensions of the fire basket. I wanted mine to be fairly wide so that I can spread the heat around. I've seen many pictures of the baskets that are tall and narrow. Tall and narrow ones likely would burn evenly no matter what, but then you may have to diffuse the heat some how if you have a full rack of food on top.

Wanted to post a few pics of my UDS. Completed it in April after reading this thread. Now I just have to find the time to use it more and learn to perfect my skills.

For an ash pan I ended up using an outside exhaust fan cover made from aluminum. My brother works for a sheet metal company and got me one for free. Its four inches deep and will hold a A LOT of ash with out clogging the vents. A cheap Wal-Mart kettle lid from a dead BBQ was also used along with the hinges. have almost $100.00 into it so far.

I wanna see those hinges!!!

desert80 said:

Wanted to post a few pics of my UDS. Completed it in April after reading this thread. Now I just have to find the time to use it more and learn to perfect my skills.

For an ash pan I ended up using an outside exhaust fan cover made from aluminum. My brother works for a sheet metal company and got me one for free. Its four inches deep and will hold a A LOT of ash with out clogging the vents. A cheap Wal-Mart kettle lid from a dead BBQ was also used along with the hinges. have almost $100.00 into it so far.

Click to expand...

Desert80, I like your hinges and was wondering if those were homemade or something you bought. Could you post a close up them??

thanks

jgh1204 said:

Anytype of sheet magnet is not going to last. Like the freebies you get to put on the refrigerator.

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I picked up 2 boxes of these. They seem very strong.

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-piece-craft-magnet-blocks-98406.html

coewar,

Thanks for the ideas. I tossed the fatty on while doing an initial seasoning. Sprayed the thing down with pam and filled up the basket with lump and six chunks of hickory. Put the fatty on just for kicks.

Yesterday I did my first real smoke, and I did a brisket. It wasn't the best brisket I've ever had, but I thought it was pretty good for my first time. I just tried to follow a tutorial on here and tried to keep it at 250 all day. Had a few variations....I went to the farmers market and when I got back it had dipped below 200. I opened up all the pipes and it crept up to around 300, but it started smoking the thick white stuff for a while. I let it smoke up closer to 300 for a while and then brought it back to 250. It sat there pretty much all day. Pulled it after being on for 11 hours. I was happy with it and glad to get my first brisket under my belt.

I drilled 3 holes and have the 3/4 inch pipes. My pipes don't fit exactly snug, though. With the ball valve completely open and the other two capped, it runs at 250 degrees.

I'm thinking about trying for the same affect by removing my pipes and getting magnets, but I don't know.

jgh1204 said:

If you are going to use chunks, put a few large ones at the top of your chimney. THat way they get to temp a lot quicker and less white smoke.

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I've been using 6 chunks...3 buried halfway into the charcoal, and 3 right on top. Should I just put the 3 on top in the chimney and dump them with the rest? It took a long time to burn off the white smoke. I dumped the chimney in right before 6 am and it was almost 7:30 before I was able to put my brisket on.


Also, whenever I open up more intake to raise the temps, I get a lot of white smoke. Is that normal?

Another thought on the magnets. It seems like flexible sheet magnets would fit the best, but I would think they could be awfully tough to move around and fine tune once your drum gets hot. I may juts look for some bigger round magnets, as my holes are all just over an inch.

pigwacker said:

Desert80, I like your hinges and was wondering if those were homemade or something you bought. Could you post a close up them??

thanks

Click to expand...

The hinges came with the lid. If you go to Walmart you can usually get a cheap (~$40) grill that has hinges like that. Also, check the thread below. I have not seen those exact ones lately but may places do carry small portable grills that have hinges you can use on a UDS

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93253&highlight=uds+hinge

Finished mine finally, I have two thermometers that I'm gonna throw on this week:

In the search for a more even burn, I just finally nuked it.

I was running a guru off of one side plug - so that is about as uneven as it gets. Now I am running it off of a centered bottom plug. The air hits a diffuser (a pizza pan ash pan would do), and enters the drum body around the edges. Nice even burn...

UDS finished and a little disappointed...

I finally got my UDS finished - well minus a handle for the lid. So far I have about $17 into it.

Barrel - Free from work
Stainless hardware - free from work (old stock)
Stainless 3/4" ball valve - free from work (old sample valve)
fire basket - made from free scrap 3/4 expando from work
Easy Off to strip liner - about $5
New cooking grate - $12

Drum was stripped with easy off and wire wheeled, burned with a weed burner, sanded to bare medal on the outside, washed, and painted ultra flat tan (that's what I had on hand.)

Here it is rubbed down with bacon grease and ready to be seasoned.



Here is my fire basket loaded up and ready to be lit. It was a mix of kingsford and some cheap stuff I had that someone else gave me. It was about a 3 to 1 mix of K to cheap and had some hickory mixed in.



I lit about 8-10 briquets and dumped them in the center. Left both caps off of the intakes and left the the ball valve all the way open. Once the temp got up to just over 200 I capped 2 of the intakes and left the ball valve fully open. Temp settled in just over 250. Let it ride there for about an hour, then opened it all back up. Temps got up to about 370-375 and I let it go for another hour. Capped the 2 intakes again to bring temps back down. I ended up just shutting it all down though since it was getting late. The entire time it smelled like the charcoal was just lighting off and was white almost the entire time - I never really smelled the sweet smell of the hickory I had in the fire basket.

After the drum cooled I pulled the lid off to take my pit probe (ET-732) out and it smelled like cigarettes. It wasn't good :tsk:. I mean it really smelled like an old dirty ashtray. I've never had this issue my GOSM. I'm glad I didn't put any meat in there as I'm sure it would have ended up in the trash.

I'm hoping it was from the cheap charcoal, so tonight I'll pull the fire basket and sift through the leftover charcoal and pull out all the cheap stuff and top it off with more kingsford.

Any other ideas of what may have caused the cigarette smell?

Coltrain said:

I finally got my UDS finished - well minus a handle for the lid. So far I have about $17 into it.

Barrel - Free from work
Stainless hardware - free from work (old stock)
Stainless 3/4" ball valve - free from work (old sample valve)
fire basket - made from free scrap 3/4 expando from work
Easy Off to strip liner - about $5
New cooking grate - $12

Drum was stripped with easy off and wire wheeled, burned with a weed burner, sanded to bare medal on the outside, washed, and painted ultra flat tan (that's what I had on hand.)

Here it is rubbed down with bacon grease and ready to be seasoned.

Here is my fire basket loaded up and ready to be lit. It was a mix of kingsford and some cheap stuff I had that someone else gave me. It was about a 3 to 1 mix of K to cheap and had some hickory mixed in.

I lit about 8-10 briquets and dumped them in the center. Left both caps off of the intakes and left the the ball valve all the way open. Once the temp got up to just over 200 I capped 2 of the intakes and left the ball valve fully open. Temp settled in just over 250. Let it ride there for about an hour, then opened it all back up. Temps got up to about 370-375 and I let it go for another hour. Capped the 2 intakes again to bring temps back down. I ended up just shutting it all down though since it was getting late. The entire time it smelled like the charcoal was just lighting off and was white almost the entire time - I never really smelled the sweet smell of the hickory I had in the fire basket.

After the drum cooled I pulled the lid off to take my pit probe (ET-732) out and it smelled like cigarettes. It wasn't good :tsk:. I mean it really smelled like an old dirty ashtray. I've never had this issue my GOSM. I'm glad I didn't put any meat in there as I'm sure it would have ended up in the trash.

I'm hoping it was from the cheap charcoal, so tonight I'll pull the fire basket and sift through the leftover charcoal and pull out all the cheap stuff and top it off with more kingsford.

Any other ideas of what may have caused the cigarette smell?

Click to expand...

Ok I'm 95% sure it was the cheap charcoal that caused the ashtray smell. I went home the next day, pulled the fire basket out and washed the inside of the drum with hot soapy water. Then I went over it with steal wool. I then proceeded to sort the leftover charcoal and threw out the cheap stuff and any I couldn't identify as kingsford. I loaded it up with more kingsford from a new bag and threw in some hickory and apple. Then I sprayed the inside of the drum with Pam cooking spray. Lit the charcoal and put it in. It was immediately apparent that it smelled much better than the day before. After it came up to 250 I let it sit there for a 30 minutes or so then threw on a fatty and some MOINKs. They turned out pretty good for a first run. By the end of the cook the smoker smelled fantastic - like what I thought it should have smelled like the entire time.

So the moral of this story - DON'T USES CHEAP CHARCOAL! And to be on the safe side, don't use bacon grease to season your drum. :thumb:

CENTECH and COLTRAIN:

According to that picture, that is WAY too much wood chunks. That basket you took picture of can last a full 24 hours I think. Too much wood chunks may cause for too much smoke causing food to taste more like the ashtray. But I'm sure that you have a point regarding the cheap charcoal.

When I get charcoal, Kingsford is usually fine, but when you buy it make sure to find ones that are all natural; no crap added to them.

Centech, when you were saying about chunks buried in the coals, more on top.. literally dude, just 1 or 2 chunks is all that's needed. Follow what I wrote regarding lighting it:

- pour 1/3 bag of un-lit coals in fire basket.
- fill a chimney about half way with coals.
- light the chimney and let those coals burn for 10-15 minutes so they are not flaming anymore; just turning white or white already.
- pour the coals over the un-lit coals in the basket.
- move them around a little with some long tongs to spread out the lit coals, but not too far from each other.
- place 1 chunk of wood on some of the lit coals.
- for longer smokes, place 1 more chunk near by but on the un-lit coals.

Judging by your description of the temps going nutty, as I learned the hard way and someone else on this board corrected me, it may be a problem with your air flow. Use the math.. how much circular area do you have for your exhaust? If you leave the 2" bung hole open completely, and for the intake 1 and a half of your 3/4 inch pipes should be totally fine.

Maybe clean out the old nasty ash too.

Oh by the way, did you ever do an initial burn-in? Burn a load of coals or bunch of wood logs to really high temp to burn whatever stuff may be inside the barrel. Not quite the "seasoning" of 350 degrees.. if your inside of the barrel has weird stuff in it, it might help.

Thanks for the help. I'll tone down on the wood. I did do the initial seasoning burn with her sprayed down with Pam.

Inv3ctiv3,

What kind of thermos are those and where did you get them? I like the way they look.

I got them on eBay for like $20, they have a 2.5"'probe