Ugly Drum Smoker

Thanks to this ginormous thread and the wise people on this forum, I was able to complete my UDS this weekend! I made 4 of the 3/4" vents on the bottom, and I left them wide open for the burn in to see how high it would go, and within about an hour and a half, as it approached 600 degrees and reached the upper limit of my Maverick, I decided I had better start shutting it down! I was eventually able to regulate to about 230 for the rest of the night. The Pam sprayed on the inside was seasoned to a perfect black. Now I can't wait to throw a butt our brisket on to smoke!

My grate is 8 inches down from the top, but I want to add another above. I would like to be able to use my original flat lid, but I'm not sure if I can make another grate fit. I have an old Weber lid, but of course it's too small, and I'm not sure if I want to try the mods I've seen so far.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread, and in turn, to the build of my new smoker!
 

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Sorry about the sideways picture. First post and from my phone, so not sure what happened...
 
Awesome thread, had two windows open on my computer for weeks. One read forward (1, 2, 3 ECT) and one Reading backward (649, 648, Ect)!!!

I lucked out and found a new unlined drum for $40. Should I still burn it out...or just season it? When the drum has been closed for a couple of hours I smell a light chemical smell...but It could be from the gasket in the lid.

Thanks!
Tony
 
I welded my first basket, just did hog rings on the second - second one works better. I misplaced my hog ring pliers (might buy a new one, they are cheep and rings are good for a lot of things), so have been using a vice grip - it is annoying but will work in a pinch. +1 for using valve stems - you will probably need to drill them out, but most are chrome plated brass (they drill out easily)

I think I can get 16+ hrs on a 10lb bag of lump.
 
I think I was in the same situation - a reconditioned drum with no liner, but it could have had a rust resistant spray inside. So I burned all the new paint off the outside (that I replaced with new high temp black) - and anything that might have been inside - with my weed burner that I bought just for that purpose at Harbor Freight for $25.
 
I used cut pieces of wire clothes hanger to attach the bottom of my charcoal basket to the sides, kinda like the hog rings. Cheap (as in I already had them on hand) and it worked well. Also used clothes hanger for a basket handle. They survived my 600 degree burn in, so I don't expect to have a problem with them.
 
My fire basket cost nothing other than 3 bolts to raise it off bottom. It is made from old gasser grills I got at junk yard. It is held together with pieces of grills bent around. The bottom has 2 grills turned 90*'s to each other. It won't win any beauty awards but has worked flawlessly for about 100 smokes. It holds 20 lbs of lump and to me is so ugly its pretty.
 
utf-8BSU1BRzAxOTQuanBn.jpg
 
can someone guide me where to get a pan with a lip for the ash pan of my charcoal basket?
 
jjester56 said:
can someone guide me where to get a pan with a lip for the ash pan of my charcoal basket?
Click to expand...
I use a flat pizza pan I got a Wal mart never saw a need for a lip I figured it would restrict air flow to the fire.
 
i only find 16" flat at walmart was looing for 1 with a lip to help catch ashes better
 
Bludawg said:
I use a flat pizza pan I got a Wal mart never saw a need for a lip I figured it would restrict air flow to the fire.
Click to expand...

+1. The walmart 16 inch cheapo pizza pan works great and doesn't restrict air flow. If you use something with more lip, prepare to gil the lip full of holes.
 
jjester56 said:
can someone guide me where to get a pan with a lip for the ash pan of my charcoal basket?
Click to expand...

I took one of the $10 charcoal grills they sell at walmart, and cut the edge of the pan, splitting the height in half, then slid the cut off half back over the bottom with the rolled edge up, and secured it with sheet metal screws. The end result was a 1" lip.

Actually I bought TWO of the grills and used the grates for the bottom of my charcoal basket, just rotated them to make a square hole pattern and bent the wire supports over the edge to hold it all together.
 
Got mine at walgreens for $6.00 and was up North last week saw them in meijer I think. Look around you will find these in the least expected places like grocery & drug stores. If you find one for more than $10 for them you need to move on.
 

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dddouglas said:
Got mine at walgreens for $6.00 and was up North last week saw them in meijer I think. Look around you will find these in the least expected places like grocery & drug stores. If you find one for more than $10 for them you need to move on.
Click to expand...


Dollar general too maybe....but that is pretty close to what I got at Walmart, the walmart one had a fancier tripod base to throw away ;-), and it's grill was more of the straight across that will orient at 90 degrees to form squares if that is what you want. I just drilled a slew of 1/2" holes in my 1" tall lip.

Bill
 
dddouglas said:
Got mine at walgreens for $6.00 and was up North last week saw them in meijer I think. Look around you will find these in the least expected places like grocery & drug stores. If you find one for more than $10 for them you need to move on.
Click to expand...

Ace hardware has those same grills for $4.99, free ship to store option if they aren't in stock.
 
I got bold and cut the top rim from my drum, partially because the flat lid I found would nit fit INSIDE it, and probably a Weber or other dome lid would not fit OUTSIDE it. And fired off another test burn. Wanted to have more solid experience before I throw $30 worth of brisket on it :). I placed this pampered chef stone on the lower rack and checked the temp 5" above it, and right below it.

Running with just the 3/4 ball valve open and around 8lbs of RO lump in the basket.

e4j7K.jpg


375f below, 250f above it.

I did check both my short and long thermo's the other day in boiling water and they are right on the money around 212.

That stone I made the mistake of "seasoning" it with canola oil, basically ruined it unless I can find a person with a pottery kiln to refire it, we do not have a self cleaning over either, people have reported cleaning them in one.
 
This is weird (to me anyway hehe). I lit off the UDS yesterday in the morning, I think it was 10 am or so, loaded the fire basket and dropped a full lit chimney of lump on top. Closed it up, ran it a bit with all the air ports open, plugged them one at a time til I was down to just the ball valve. It was running 225-250. Left for work, came home at 1045pm and looked out, it was at 200. Figuired it had tapered down and was done.

So at 9am I look out this morning, nearly a full 24 hours, and it is at 250 ??

HUH ?? Pulled the lid and heck only about half the lump had burned, I hit it with forced air from a small shop vac and the coals were burning all through the pile of remaining lump. So I closed it back up and went to readjusting the air. I had this one bag of lump, not sure where I got it, but the bag is a different color than the "normal" RO lump I have gotten other places/times.

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Bill
 
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