Ugly Drum Smoker

BobF said:

Bbq Bubba,
You may be right. But be'in the hard headed one that I am, I am going to try it anyway. It may melt the pan, but it is high grade chinese stainless, How could that possibly melt?
Adding sides (if there is a bottom left) should solve the enough charcoal part.

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if its stainless it will do fine. You still need some vertical mesh or something though.

BobF said:

Ok here is my current idea.
I got one of these:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...roductId=100575652&N=10000003+503171+10023001
The handle can be removed fairly easily. Once removed it leaves the attachment point that provides one point for the basket to rest on. I add 2 bolts through the side holes at 1/3 points around the perimeter. Now it sits on what was my charcoal pan for my ECB. I now have an ash pan with elevated (slightly) basket for charcoal. It probably needs a ring to contain coals if piled up more than 2-3 inches. The ash can fall through the holes in the bottom to the old ECB ashpan.
Am I crazy?
The picture is just the picture from the borg's site if you don't want to deal with the link.

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I use something similar for smoke drying hot peppers
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...productId=100541732&langId=-1&catalogId=10053

It might have more capacity than the round pan

Mark said:

I use something similar for smoke drying hot peppers
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...productId=100541732&langId=-1&catalogId=10053

It might have more capacity than the round pan

Click to expand...

The reason I choose the round one is because it sits on my coal pan from the ECB just right. This gives me an ash catcher and raises the coals off the floor of the drum about 4". If I had a metal 5 gallon can I would cut the bottom off for an ash catcher. Hmmm, maybe I can find one.
In the spirit of the UDS, I am trying to use what I have around the house and buy as little as possible.

BobF said:

The reason I choose the round one is because it sits on my coal pan from the ECB just right. This gives me an ash catcher and raises the coals off the floor of the drum about 4". If I had a metal 5 gallon can I would cut the bottom off for an ash catcher. Hmmm, maybe I can find one.
In the spirit of the UDS, I am trying to use what I have around the house and buy as little as possible.

Click to expand...

Does the ECB pan have holes in it?
If not, she won't burn, gotta have air, preferably coming from the bottom to keep that fire goin!

Bbq Bubba said:

Does the ECB pan have holes in it?
If not, she won't burn, gotta have air, preferably coming from the bottom to keep that fire goin!

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Not yet.
Should I drill some?
The coal holder will sit about 3/8" above the pan so there is air space there.
The ECB used it with no holes or anything other than air over the top. Not that it worked that good. This will hold the fuel over the pan and allow air in under the holder.

Thanks to all who have humored my stupid ideas.

Fire starting thought...anyone considered using a propane burner BENEATH the fuel basket to start your fuel...??? Something along the lines of an electric ignition system on a gas grill...:wink:

BobF said:

Not yet.
Should I drill some?
The coal holder will sit about 3/8" above the pan so there is air space there.
The ECB used it with no holes or anything other than air over the top. Not that it worked that good. This will hold the fuel over the pan and allow air in under the holder.

Thanks to all who have humored my stupid ideas.

Click to expand...

Touche'

Never a stupid idea.....this hole thread started on a "stupid idea".

You'd need a LOT of holes which defeats the purpose of the ash catcher.
I just found at a garage sale an old 18" round camping grill that will set in the bottom of the drum as my new ash pan!!

Pictures at Eleven!!

Bbq Bubba said:

Touche'

Never a stupid idea.....this hole thread started on a "stupid idea".

You'd need a LOT of holes which defeats the purpose of the ash catcher.
I just found at a garage sale an old 18" round camping grill that will set in the bottom of the drum as my new ash pan!!

Pictures at Eleven!!

Click to expand...

OK.
I'll try it with no holes first. I can always add some .
Lot easier to add holes than take them away.
Many years ago, the guy teachin me aircraft assembly said "take that hole out and drill it again".
Never forgot.
Soon as I get my hands on some expanded metal, I'll stop a lot of this foolishness and make a proper basket.

BobF said:

OK.
I'll try it with no holes first. I can always add some .
Lot easier to add holes than take them away.
Many years ago, the guy teachin me aircraft assembly said "take that hole out and drill it again".
Never forgot.
Soon as I get my hands on some expanded metal, I'll stop a lot of this foolishness and make a proper basket.

Click to expand...

This is what I did to an old ECB Pan:


Works well enough as an Ash Pan with my Charcoal Basket and has enough air intake to keep the Coals Burning.

JD McGee said:

Fire starting thought...anyone considered using a propane burner BENEATH the fuel basket to start your fuel...??? Something along the lines of an electric ignition system on a gas grill...:wink:

Click to expand...

Good idea, I was trying to think of what type would work best and be cheap. Maybe modify a weed burner somehow since the parts seem basic..

I knew I saw that here but couldnt remember where. I wonder if you could adapt it as a permanant burner?

Norcoredneck said:

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Yep...something like that that you can keep in the bottom of the UDS. Maybe plumb it with pipe having a quick disconnect attached outside the drum...hmmmm...

We have a gas starter in our wood burning fireplace. Seems pretty simple and it can be easily adapted to a drum...just not sure about where to attach an electronic ignition.

Stupid Barrel Burn Question

So I have aquired a barrel. I started a big ol' fire in it and burned it until the fire deptartment showed up and told me to put it out. (About 90 minutes). Did I mention I live in the city and I have a real PITA for a neighbor.

I have a buddy outside of town that is gonna let me bring the barrel over to his place and burn it out properly this weekend. Trouble is, I am not sure what the heck I am doing and I need to get it right.

How long do I burn it? I assume there is a visual way to know when I am done. The barrel has blue paint on the outside (with some character added by some surface rust). The inside appears to have a deep red coating on it. Might be worth mentioning that the red surface had some white streaks on it that looked like latex paint but felt a little harder.

After my 90 minute burn, 85% of the outside is white. The bottom 15% around the air intakes is still blue. The white almost looks like a thin layer of ash.

Inside the barrel is a thick soot and ash covering over the red pigment. It is still red. Almost reminds me of a hard acrylic coating. I can wipe the soot off and some red pigment comes off as well but it is still red underneath.

I need some help figuring out how to burn it clean. How hot, how long, method to use, lid on or off?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Coldsmoke:

Yours is a very good question given the hassels many of us face with the local authorities.


A big-ass propane fueled weed burner is one option.

ColdSmoke the primary object here is to get that red off. the Red epoxy is the hard one to remove and may take several burns with very hot fires. I should mention that you should NOT use any accelerent to start the fires since that would again defeat some of the purpose of the burn out. ( so no gasoline or charcoal fluid )

The white ash is the look you are going for you will notice that it rubs off quite easily and with a light sanding, and revels bare metal. the interior red will require more time in the fire than the outside.

Consider dumping a few fully lit chimneys of charcoal lump in the drum to get the bottom end burnt off. It would help if the drum were supported by four bricks, so that the ground does not suck off some of the heat from the bottom. add some smaller wood peaces to gradually elevate the level of the burn hot spot. once you have the bottom burned off add wood until you have flames burning off the rest of the drum.

what wood to use is a point of contention but I would say use the same types of wood that are used for smoking, namely hardwoods. most of the wood used for construction are types of fir and can be hazardous to smoke with. Hardwoods will produce a hotter fire as will lump charcoal. You need heat more than you need smoke for this burn out.

A good weed burner is always a good tool for this as well, it will produce lots of heat in a small area, so you will need to heat evenly as you burn off the paint to avoid distortion of the drum and lid.


Once you have it well burned out you will need to get the inside to bare metal with either:

• A "wire wheel on a stick" ( wire wheel screwed to a length of threaded rod sandwiched between some nuts and lock washers)
• Hand or power sanding
• Wire brushing by hand
• Sandblasting
• Anyway you can get it to bare metal
• many of the above

Do you know what was in your Drum before? one thing to remember is that even an unlined bare metal drum will react with what was in it before and become part of the metal. Lined or drums with a painted interior help to prevent that reaction a little but not completely. SO bottom Line is that What ever was in your Drum in the past will leave trace amounts in the metal of the drum. so if you are not sure that you drum did NOT contain some poisonous or hazardous stuff in it before you should find a drum that YOU KNOW had only food grade non hazardous contents. After all you will be cooking for you, your family and friends in it!

That being said I'm sure there is someone somewhere cooking up a storm in a drum formerly used for storing spent plutonium in an DDT bath, that will say just rinse out the pained and lined drum and start smoking in it!

Barrel Origins

I did go back to teh steel yard today and found another barrel that looks the same as mine (blue paint with dark red interior. It had a sticker on the lid that was very faded and but I think it said Sherwin Williams. I also saw the the word exterior.

I am thinking that it maybe contained exterior latex paint. That makes sense considering the drum had what appeared to be streaks of white paint on the inside.

Can I use this? I have been looking for a source for a "food grade" barrel and simply cannot find one I know is of this type. For that matter, I don't know how "food grade" is different then "not food grade".

I just wanna get started on this.

Dump it and find another.