Pizza pans work and are cheap. Or hit a hardware store and look for an 18" aluminum water heater pan.

I used a 16" pizza pan from Wal-Mart. Yes, it's zinc-plated (I think), but it'll never be within 500 degrees of how hot it'd need to get in order to give off bad vapors. There are aluminum ones out there too, but I think they're more expensive.

As someone else on here did, a 30-gallon drum lid works nicely! I think it's 18" in diameter.

The only welding in mine is the crows foot I use to lift the basket assembly - it is not entirely necessary. I use a 16" commercial pizza pan - ditched the table top pan ash basket (think it was messing with the airflow).

Is a pizza pan deep enough to hold the ashes

Yes, if you empty 'em after every cook (which is easy, considering you have to pull the whole assembly out every time). I'd recommend putting a solid 3" space between the charcoal grate and the ash pan... mine's at 2" and I think it may slightly restrict airflow as the ash pan gets full. It forms a mound, and mine hasn't yet dumped over the edge during a cook. That said, I run either lump or Kingsford Competition... ash from Kingsford Blue Bag might fill up the pizza pan, but it'd completely choke airflow from the bottom of the charcoal grate first.

My ash pan is about 2.5" bigger in diameter than the basket (13.5" charcoal grate from a 18" Weber kettle vs. 16" pizza pan), so that helps.

I used a $4 16" Pizza pan I got from Mejier. I've seen the same one in several photos. It is pretty flimsy, but I figure I can replace it easy enough. My coal basket is 13.5" in diameter, most of the ash stays beneath there. I didn't want a pan with sides that may inhibit air flow from the bottom of the coal basket.

Here's my setup. I bolted everything together in 4 places, so the pan could be pretty flimsy and still survive fine. This one was something like $6, and is actually pretty rigid, thanks in part to its curved dished shape. Prolly not made out of very thick metal though!

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/pi...pictureid=2109

Thank y'all

Ditto!! Walmart Pizza pan works just fine for me too. And I have the same on my larger charcoal basket even, and still works just fine. :thumb:

Chicken Wings... I've seen a few post about doing wings on the UDS. I'm thinking about doing some tomorrow for a Halloween gathering. Question is how long do I need to anticipate cooking them?

Plan is to smoke them, then finish them off on the grill w/ some special sauces.... :cool:

I thought about using some kind of ash pan but I like to give my basket a good shake before I take it out of the uds, it gets all the ash and little pieces out of the basket. I can then set it outside the uds and get no or very little mess on the lawn when I fill the basket and light it up.

Another reason I don't feel it necessary to use the ash pan is, I get from fifteen to twenty cooks before I need to empty the uds, plus I believe the ash acts as a grease catcher and also acts as a heat sink to keep the temp more even. Some will say this will eat out the bottom of my uds but I have been using it for about 3 years now with no sign of that happening anytime soon and it sits right on the ground but if it does they are so easy to make and so inexpensive I won't mind. Just my two cents worth.
Dave

In the process of burning out my first UDS. The weed burner doesn't seem to be doing much to the inside paint from the outside. How long should I sit on a spot and try to burn it out?

Would a good load of charcoal in the bottom be sufficient?

There doesn't seem to be any kind of oil or coating on the drums, just heavy duty paint.

THANKS!

If you have "paint" on the inside then that is probably what people call a liner. What color is it? What type of barrel did you get (i.e. food grade, petroleum, etc)? If you do not have bare metal on the inside then it is highly recommended that you do everything in your power to remove that liner. Many may argue against the need to remove it but I still believe its a good precaution. To remove the liner it is usually suggested to do a big burn. I use broken down pallets I get from work. Try to get the drum red hot. You can then wash out the drum and grind down the inside with a wire wheel on a disk grinder. Its a bit of work but not that bad once you jump into it.

My only concern with a big burn is that i live in the center of a residential area and don't have access to anyone in the country. May have to do it over night ;-) thanks.

the barrel was marked "non hazardous waste - drill cuttings" and looks like it just had bits of metal and sand/dirt in them.

Oh - and i'm totally cool doing the work to get it to bare metal, I'm just wondering if I'm doing something wrong with the weedburner or does that method usually take quite a while?

Thanks again.