My idea for a UDS. Opinions welcomed.

[Toronto]

Ive decided that I was going to make a UDS this spring and I got to thinking why not try to take it a step higher so I came up with this idea, let me know what you think.
I would have a UDS in the traditional sense but instead of having my fire inside the 55 gallon drum I would use Wang’s 3in1 smoker and connect it to my UDS:




Now doing it this way has its pros and cons.

Pro:
- I can use hardwood or charcoal I believe with this smoker
- This will give me another 22.5 grill in the smoker for a total of three
- The smoker can be controlled with my Dog

Cons:
- Reaching that 3rd grill will be difficult, will probably require a tool
- The temps would probably vary quite a bit from the bottom to the top of the smoker

Thoughts?

[Toronto]

I was thinking for the third grill I could just use the standard charcoal basket everyone makes except use it as a grill. This way I would have a wall to prevent any food sliding off and also a chain to haul it up, id probably use a 18 or 20 inch grill.

[Toronto]

I went to bed thinking about my UDS for spring and I actually had a dream about a smoker, HAHA. So here is my original idea, I was thinking maybe pile a bunch of fire bricks at the bottom to elevate the basket grill?



So as I was checking out Wangs site I noticed that the XL cold smoker is actually the same price as the gravity fed smoker so I thought why not just get that instead? The challenge came in mounting it so I came up with this design.



So the barrel would be on its side and I would need to cut out a rectangular hole on the bottom of the barrel to mount the smoker. For the legs I would just use some 2x4's in an X formation held together by another 2x4 going horizontally. On the other end of the barrel I would need a locking clamp to ensure a tight seal:



Thoughts?

[woodpelletsmoker]

I do not quite understand you.
Do you want an USD or an offset.

It seems to me that you want an USD.
Basically I think you can attach gravity feed burner to USD.
Then you can save vertical space, and may add one more level of grill.
Also by gravity feed burner, you will have better and automatic control of temperature.
If this is true, a gravity feed burner has benefits over cold smoker.
The primary purpose of cold smoker is "COLD SMOKING", fire box is just an added feature.

[woodpelletsmoker]

By the way do you think that it is needed or not to add lining of ceramic plate around inner wall of an USD. Say I can make the "arc shape" ceramic plate. 4 or 6 arcs form a round of 22.5". Height of arc may be 10". You can add 2 to 4 round of arc.
This way you will have some kind of a Kamado

[colonel00]

Yeah, I am kinda confused here as well. In response to your first idea, that would work great as a cold smoker but I don't think it will have enough heat to rival a UDS for actually cooking meat.

On your second set of ideas, I like the creativity but again, I think you are getting away from the simple concept of the UDS and its beauty there in. A UDS works because it is extremely efficient and simple to build and use. Sure, many people have made modifications to the basic design but sticking to the basic design is always recommended.

If this is your first UDS, I would suggest building one along the lines of the standard design. You can always build another one later once you have used a standard one and see what you want to change. I have had plenty of ideas of things I wanted to try but in the end I use two standard UDS's. I do use two of Wang's controllers which really makes my cookers a "set it and forget it" setup.

[Toronto]

Originally Posted by woodpelletsmoker

I do not quite understand you.
Do you want an USD or an offset.

My goal is to make a smoker with a 55 gallon drum, aka an Ugly Drum. If I make it in the traditional way with it sitting vertically



reaching the third grill will be difficult, I was thinking about using the charcoal basket most people make and just using it as a grill since it has walls and a handle



Doing it this way the third grill will have to be smaller and also it will sit quite a bit lower than the first two grills which means I would have varying temps inside my smoker which isnt ideal. I can fix this by stacking fire bricks on the bottom and sitting the basket on the bricks to give it height.

Mounting the gravity fed smoker on a curved surface looked like it would be a challenge, perhaps you could think of a simple solution for mounting it on the drums curved surface?

I was thinking about using magnets but then realized they dont stick to stainless steel.

Originally Posted by woodpelletsmoker

By the way do you think that it is needed or not to add lining of ceramic plate around inner wall of an USD. Say I can make the "arc shape" ceramic plate. 4 or 6 arcs form a round of 22.5". Height of arc may be 10". You can add 2 to 4 round of arc.
This way you will have some kind of a Kamado

The UDS is usually thick enough to hold stable temperatures. In really windy weather most people wrap a water heater blanket over it or build a cheap 3 panel plywood wall like this:



Both solutions cost less than $50, how much would your ceramic plates cost?

[Toronto]

Originally Posted by colonel00

Yeah, I am kinda confused here as well. In response to your first idea, that would work great as a cold smoker but I don't think it will have enough heat to rival a UDS for actually cooking meat.

Yeah ive decided to move away from the cold smoker/3in1 smoker since the gravity fed smoker is in the same price range and will give me the extra heat ill need. I only chose the cold smoker initially because it looked like it would be really easy to connect it to the standard threaded pipe everyone uses.

Originally Posted by colonel00

On your second set of ideas, I like the creativity but again, I think you are getting away from the simple concept of the UDS and its beauty there in. A UDS works because it is extremely efficient and simple to build and use. Sure, many people have made modifications to the basic design but sticking to the basic design is always recommended.

I was thinking out loud with this one, I just wanted a flat surface to mount the gravity fed smoker too and also this would make reaching into the smoker a lot easier, I guess the trade off would be grill surface. But then again I could fashion some kind of double decker grill to maximize the space in there.

Originally Posted by colonel00

If this is your first UDS, I would suggest building one along the lines of the standard design. You can always build another one later once you have used a standard one and see what you want to change. I have had plenty of ideas of things I wanted to try but in the end I use two standard UDS's. I do use two of Wang's controllers which really makes my cookers a "set it and forget it" setup.

This will be my first UDS and im thinking I dont want a plain one. I want mine to be unique even if it means a little extra work, basically mounting the gravity fed burner on the drum, my UDS on steroids.

[woodpelletsmoker]

"Mounting the gravity fed smoker on a curved surface looked like it would be a challenge, perhaps you could think of a simple solution for mounting it on the drums curved surface? "


The outlet is 3 1/2", I can add a flange on outlet.
Also I can add 3 legs on the burner, the height of legs can be adjusted to match USD.
You need only to drill a hole of 3 1/2 +" on your USD.
Let the USD and burner stand side by side.

Legs for your reference

[woodpelletsmoker]

Indeed you may need the outlet to the bottom of USD, legs may not be used.
You may need ony three short bolt/screws to adjust height a little bit

[woodpelletsmoker]

Benefit of added gravity feed burner:
1. You can refill fuel at any time if you do really long hours smoking
2. You save vertical space to add one more grill. If it is too deep to handle the bottom grill, you can use skewers instead of grill. Or if you use 2 grills, you can lower the height of USD to 23.5"

[Toronto]

Would it be possible to connect the gravity burner to the UDS using a corrugated ss pipe, like how the cold smoker/3in1 smoker has? Or does the pipe need to be 3.5inches for the gravity burner to be effective?

I dont think legs will be necessary since I will be trying to mount it as low as possible. I would want it to attach/unattach to my UDS easily so I could easily clean the gravity burner.

[woodpelletsmoker]

There is no corrugated pipe as big as 3.5".
But why not ordinary 3.5" pipe as shown in above picture
I can weld a arc flange same radius as 22.5"

[Toronto]

I meant the same size pipe that you use for the cold smoker or would the diameter be to small for the gravity burner? Using that corrugated pipe is what attracted me to your burners in the first place, it looked really easy to attach to a UDS's 3/4 inch inlet pipe.

This way for smaller cooks I could still use my UDS in the traditional sense without the burner.

[woodpelletsmoker]

1" pipe is too small for burner.
Another problem, the corrugated pipe is very thin, if used in burner, high temperature flame can easily burn it out.