Electric Cooker to BBQ Smoker Conversion

My nephew called me up the other day and told me that he scored an electric BBQ cooker for $10 at a yard sale and wanted to know if I knew where he could get the cord for it. I asked him about the cooker and he told me it was a Char-Broil electric. I mentioned that it could probably be converted to a charcoal smoker which would be my preference. He didn't know how to do the conversion so I volunteered. Any chance to build, repair, convert a BBQ smoker is a treat so here is what I did.
I started with this Char-Broil electric.



Everything appeared to be in good shape. The grates were not rusted and and the outside of the cooker looked pretty good. I opened it up and found the heating element in good shape.



However, when I removed the element and dug a little farther, I found that it had never been cleaned under the element and was full of grease. Here is a pic after I removed the most disgusting left overs.



I cleaned it up best I could and then sprayed some oven cleaner in it and let it sit for a while.



It cleaned up pretty well and I think that a good hot fire will help things out.



Once I cleaned it up enough to not puke from the left over grease, I got started on the inlet vents. I drilled some holes and made some plugs.



I also cut and drilled a support plate from some spare sheet metal I had laying around and put a couple of coats of grill paint on it.



I installed a ball valve for the main air inlet vent mounted in the sheet metal plate.





The lid had a useless thermometer in it so I removed it and made a plug for the hole. When in use, the plug will be removed and I figure that it should be plenty big enough for a vent.



I added a thermometer about 1" below the top grate, gave the legs a coat of paint, and here it is. A new charcoal smoker converted from an electric cooker.



And, the moon was so beautiful, I couldn't help but snap this pic.



I will be firing it up this weekend to get a feel for how it will hold temps and make any adjustments that may be necessary. When I think it's ready, I will hand it over to my nephew. That's what this hobby is all about!

MG_NorCal said:

With electrics like that I've had good results doing like the photo below.
Place a few pieces of wood the same as the pictured briquettes and you're good to go.
Going with all charcoal will present airflow (and temp control) problems.
Keeping the electric element for most of the heat and adding combustibles for flavor works well.

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Interesting approach. Thanks.

cholloway said:

Much better.
Is there a charcoal grate?

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There is a grate just over the bottom section that I have a charcoal basket sitting. I will post some pics of it and the first fire tomorrow if it doesn't rain.

Mo-Dave said:

Lemons to lemonade as they say, good job and to top it off you are in lock step with Obama's going green program.
Dave

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Heck yeah! I'm doing my part to make sure we all don't burn to a crisp due to capitalist made global warming.

jgbmgb said:

Nice job. An IQ 110 would work perfectly with that!!

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Yep, but if my nephew wants one I'll let him pay for it. :laugh:

OK, here is the charcoal basket. I installed a grate with a grill basket on top. I put an aluminium pan underneath to catch ash.



For the first fire, I used 1 fully lit chimney of charcoal without a diffuser. I want to see what kind of temps I can get it up to to make sure there was plenty of air flow with all dampers open. The temp quickly rose to over 400 degrees so I think there is plenty of air flow.

I'm going to let it hang out at this temp for about an hour to burn off any nasties that may be in there since this cooker was sitting with grease in it for a long time.




Once this hot burn is done, I will start a new fire and test the low and slow performance and make any needed adjustments.

The good news. The thermometer is accurate enough. Here is the reading when compared to my Maverick with probe in the center of the grate. I have a diffuser in the smoker now while testing the low temp performance.



The bad news, 280 is the lowest temp I can get it down to. So, I'm thinking I should start a new fire with fewer lit coals and go with a minion style fire with unlit coals on top. I think that adjusting the fire is going to be the best bet at this point. If that fails, then I will look at possible mods to the smoker.

I will post more pics as the experiment continues.