New BPS Build First Real Cook

[Arristillius]

I have been lurking on this board for quite some time, and have quite enjoyed all of the lovely bbq pr0n so I figured I would see what you guys thought of my work, *I realize my camera leaves an annoying blue tint *

I thought about building a UDS for a while but my wife thought the big pappa smoker kit would save me time and effort and result in a much more attractive result, and she normally hates when I spend money, so I couldn't say no

I found a 55 gallon drum used for lemon juice concentrate on craigslist and burned it out with a weed burner, after the initial joy of owning a flamethrower wore off, and my wife begged me to stop burning things in my yard, it only took about an hour to strip the paint, then I scrubbed it out with some simple green and a scotch pad, till it was shiny, rinsed it well, dried it out with the flamethrower for fun, and painted it while it was still warm :P

and the lid :P


for future reference I noted that I should have drilled the holes prior to painting it flat black... it was a bit harder to mark the barrel than I would have liked after the black paint. so it took me a whole day to assemble the kit, and I didn't take any progress pics till I had her oiled up and burning on my patio.


*note the Maverick 732 hanging out, I need to figure out a good solution for the probe cables*
it ran for 13 hours on the first run without me touching it... aside from lunch, I couldn't resist putting some chicken breast in it, made a great sammy

Tonight is the first real cook after two impressive in my opinion dry runs where it stayed within 5 degrees of where I put it for at least 10 hours. I am doing 3 racks of baby back ribs from Costco, and 3 fatty's, because I have never smoked a fatty before *It took me a while to figure out what you guys were talking about* I am just doing them plain out of the package with some rub on them, I might stuff them next time

anyhow here she is loaded up, ill post pics of the results when I pull them, if I remember before I start eating


and here is the smoker all loaded up with what I think is the right color smoke, it looks blue to me

[peaspurple]

Very pretty, I am sure you will be happy with it.

[landarc]

Looking good, Big Poppa makes a nice kit, I envy that bottom vent setup.

[Carbon]

Very nice build! I see your kettle is chained.

[superlazy]

my wife begged me to stop burning things in my yard,

Nice job, Looks good to me

[Arristillius]

Originally Posted by Carbon

Very nice build! I see your kettle is chained.

my neighborhood likes to run off with light and shiny things, the bps is heavy and hot atm so I didn't bother chaining it... I did buy a chain and lock though.

I am still debating on if I want the barrel sitting directly on my paver patio, or if I want a mat of some sort to protect it from grease, the cardboard under it right now is testing its heat output on the bottom, so far it hasn't even singed it. but I am noticing a lot of black drippings coming off the lid when I open it.

[mikemci]

You need to shoot your scumbag neighbor. Looks like a good job to me!

[cowgirl]

Great job on your build!

[Arristillius]

Almost forgot to grab some pics of the results, first couple people were loading up their plates by the time I remembered

here is a shot of the ribs, I cooked them to three donenesses, first one was taken off when it cracked as I bent it, then one rack was taken off every half hour after that, my guests liked the third rack that fell off the bone the best, I liked the second rack that almost fell off the bone, this pic is from the first rack.



and here is the fattys all sliced up, one of them was gobbled up in the slicing process by guests risking knife for meat.

the food was great, and nobody even reached for the bbq sauce I had on the table, so I consider it a successful cook

the one thing that concerned me a bit, was my lid was dripping nasty black slightly greasy water, whenever I opened it I had to be careful to go slow and angle it to run the grease into the barrel and away from the food.

and then near the end of the cook it stopped dripping and started flaking, looking like this.



so I guess my question is, what is the flaking and should I worry about it? the lid was stripped to bare metal, and then wiped down with peanut oil, assembled and heated to 250 for 10 hours, so I think it was seasoned properly, and until this cook had a shiny black appearance, this stuff is flaking away to leave a shiny black underneath it. so I don't think it's paint, I wonder if this has something to do with the dripping?

[Smoothsmoke]

Get that crud off with a putty knife. If it's too hard, hit it with some oven cleaner, should come right off.

Your food looks great, and love the BPS drum.

[Johnny_Crunch]

Nice pr0n!

[teej]

The flaking crud is just grease build up. Nothing to worry about, just scrub it off. I get it on my Akorn after nearly every cook.

[oifmarine2003]

Originally Posted by Arristillius

my neighborhood likes to run off with light and shiny things.

Great job on the build. Your food looks outstanding. Now to build something to deal with that neighbor.......

[criffaaa1]

everything looks great, and the bps kit is nice. I think that flaking stuff is creosote build up, that usually happens after many many cooks. the dripping was the creosote and condensation from the naturally most environment of the uds combining. so get rid of the flaky stuff and you should be good to go.

[aawa]

Great looking UDS and food! I'm suprised they haven't ran off with your kettle, they can just remove the legs and run off with the kettle itself