Wine Barrel Smoker - 1st Cook w/ Food Pron

First, The Barrel




Coals with Pecan wood




Picnic rubbed with Pappy's ready for the party




Meat goes on at 12:30am




Let the smoke begin. I tried to get some sleep but I was worried about the whole "fire in a wood barrel" thang so I pretty much stayed up all night and watched movies (and drank beer .




7am, beautiful morning in California, yawwwwn...




8:30am: Decided to add chicken and a fatty. Checked temp of picnic to see if it was close... 210 degrees! Pulled that sucker and rested in foil.




Chicken smokin'




Finished







What I learned from my first cook...

1. This giant barrel uses fuel like my grandpas old Buick! It's approx 130 gallons so it will take more fuel to heat that large of a space. 10 pounds of K in 10 hours.

2. My temps were reading between 230 and 250 but that was not at grate level. I'm waiting for my Spicewine thermo to get here so I can get it right under the grate. I think temps were higher at the grate making for a quick 8 hour cook on the pork. Finished product was a little bit dry but I made a Carolina style sauce which helped. Good stuff!

3. Pecan wood smells GOOOOOD coming out of that barrel! Pork drippings hitting the fire and smoking up smells even better.


Thanks to everybody who contributed to my Wine Barrel Project thread. It was a fun project to work on and think about. There's not a whole lot of 130 gallon wine barrel smokers out there to steal ideas from! The UDS thread was a big help as well. I couldn't have done it, nor would I have probably even tried, without the great help from the Brethren collective!

Have a good day everybody.

River City Smokehouse said:

I think that is the neatest looking smoker. Where does one get a barrel like that?? Hermann?? How much will they cost??

Click to expand...

This is a puncheon wine barrel from Sebastiani Winery in Sonoma, Ca. You could use a whiskey barrel as well.

I scavenged parts from an old grill in the yard to make my air intakes (one on each side)