Ugly Drum Smoker

[17mbpro]

Originally Posted by willbird

I just used soft steel wire (probably electric fence wire) and twisted it with safety wire pliers, but you could just as readily twist it with the small vice grips probably, just loop it around, cross the wires, clamp at the cross point, and twist until it is tight.

I just happen to have a set of safety wire pliers leftover from sprint car racing adventures, if you do not I bet the needle nose vicegrips would work fine, the key thing is to grab the wire and keep hold til all twisting is done.


Here is what it looks like twisted



Harbor Freight shows a set of the safety wire pliers for like $12 bucks.

They call them.................(I did not link thinking that is verboten, just go to HF and search them)

9" Safety Wire Twister

They work like a yankee screwdriver in reverse sort of :-).

Bill

Thank you for the tip....I'll be heading to HD today to pick some up. Do you think rebar wire would work too, or is that to stiff?

[Soulcoffr]

Originally Posted by Paul Worth

I have used hog rings on all my baskets so far. You can pick up hog ring pliers at Harbor Freight for less than $10. I use metal valve stems for the thermometer hole.

I used rebar ties to attach mine. Got them good and tight with a power drill and a screw-in hook in the chuck.


Sent from my iPhone using My Fingers.

[FiremanD]

I'm having a problem with mine. I fired it up and had the temps steadied at around 240 for 2 hours with one intake open about 3/4 of the way. the temp started rising and got to 260. I shut the intakes completely and it is still slowly rising. I don't know why. I am using a uniflame wallyworld lid that fits pretty good. intakes are 3 3/4 2 capped 1 valve.

[willbird]

Originally Posted by 17mbpro

The valve stems are a good idea. Do you need need to pliers or could I use some snub nosed pliers (which I have.)

I have burned the rubber from them when I was meting lead wheel weights that had valve stems mixed in, a good hot fire will burn all the rubber away. I bet a small pile of briq with a few valvestems in it would net nice clean rubber free valvestems and a stink that would clear the neighborhood :-).

On the wire twist pliers, even the soft electric fence wire is just about outside their ability....I have no experience with rebar wire so cannot say.

Bill

[Soulcoffr]

Originally Posted by willbird

I have burned the rubber from them when I was meting lead wheel weights that had valve stems mixed in, a good hot fire will burn all the rubber away. I bet a small pile of briq with a few valvestems in it would net nice clean rubber free valvestems and a stink that would clear the neighborhood :-).

On the wire twist pliers, even the soft electric fence wire is just about outside their ability....I have no experience with rebar wire so cannot say.

Bill

I used the precut rebar wire with the loops on the ends. That way they are easier to manage, they're all the same length and you can use the power drill, pliers or a rebar wire tool.


Sent from my iPhone using My Fingers.

[maliclipse]

I finally had some time to work on my new UDS...

With the help of this thread I started off by ordering a brand new unlined 85 gallon drum from grainger.

Then a Tel-Tru 5" thermo...

Then some pizza pans..

Then to the hardware store for some casters, stainless bolts/nuts/washers, a unibit, etc.

Here's the progress:









All i need to do is to poke some holes in the diffuser pan, add some handles and season... very excited!

[Shadowdog500]

Originally Posted by maliclipse

I finally had some time to work on my new UDS...

With the help of this thread I started off by ordering a brand new unlined 85 gallon drum from grainger.

Then a Tel-Tru 5" thermo...

Then some pizza pans..

Then to the hardware store for some casters, stainless bolts/nuts/washers, a unibit, etc.

Here's the progress:









All i need to do is to poke some holes in the diffuser pan, add some handles and season... very excited!

I love the NEW hasmat drum! I want one! How much was that drum?

You may have trouble getting people to eat the food that comes out of a drum with hasmat labels all over it. You know it was new, but they don't. I use a drum type smoker and can't count the times I had people ask what was in the drum before I got it.

Chris

[maliclipse]

I plan on taking the sticker off. But I'm going to do is get a nuclear stencil and paint it on instead the nice thing is we live next to a nuclear powerplant out here so I'll tell the people that I got a great deal on it from the plant.

We'll see might be fun messing with the guests. ;)

[willbird]

I'm liking that UDS :-)......A few blue LED's inside the drum would be really cool when you tell them you "got it from the plant" :-).

[W00dButcher]

How much fuel like K blue does everyone typically use? I suspect it would be based on the estimated cook time, right? So my fire basket needs to be sized to fit 10 - 15 lbs of brickettes?

[willbird]

Originally Posted by W00dButcher

How much fuel like K blue does everyone typically use? I suspect it would be based on the estimated cook time, right? So my fire basket needs to be sized to fit 10 - 15 lbs of brickettes?

I just pulled the leftovers from the test burn on my drum, I had maybe 5lbs of RO briq. in there, and a chimney full of RO lump to start it off, maybe 25% of that burned and at the 8 hour mark (with nobody there to fiddle with the temp) it was still at 8 hours, and maybe 25% of the total fuel load burned.

[Paul Worth]

Originally Posted by 17mbpro

The valve stems are a good idea. Do you need need to pliers or could I use some snub nosed pliers (which I have.)

You can install hog rings with regular pliers but it takes a lot more patience and still usually doesn't work as well as the hog ring pliers.

[willbird]

About temperatures. Which is a more "honest" pit temp, a thermometer placed just UNDER the grill with no meat over it, or one placed right over the meat shielded from radiant heat from the charcoal ? With the typical UDS the former would be under the lower grate, the latter would be under the upper grate ?

Bill

[GreenDrake]

Originally Posted by willbird

About temperatures. Which is a more "honest" pit temp, a thermometer placed just UNDER the grill with no meat over it, or one placed right over the meat shielded from radiant heat from the charcoal ? With the typical UDS the former would be under the lower grate, the latter would be under the upper grate ?

Bill

You know, on mine I put a probe immediately under the lower and the upper grates and noted about a 20 degree difference on the average, so far. I also have a circular cutout from the lid that rests directly on the basket to be used as the heat deflector. Mine likes to cruise right about 230 at the top grate. I don't have the specs on how much lower the lower grate is or how high it is from the basket, I will try to check it out later.

[willbird]

Originally Posted by GreenDrake

You know, on mine I put a probe immediately under the lower and the upper grates and noted about a 20 degree difference on the average, so far. I also have a circular cutout from the lid that rests directly on the basket to be used as the heat deflector. Mine likes to cruise right about 230 at the top grate. I don't have the specs on how much lower the lower grate is or how high it is from the basket, I will try to check it out later.

I did not quantify the difference, but there was one for sure, the upper thermo placement made hitting temps many people talk about fairly easy, the lower placement seemed to give a higher temp, and if there was meat right OVER the thermo, it read a LOT lower due to drippings probably ?