I keep a text file with UDS tips. Here are the location tips I have.

Check bakeries,truck stop/oil change places, bulk oil terminals,hydraulic shops,transmission shops,machine shops-coolant.
Might also check environmemtal clean up companies.
(Not me) "I get them from my local oil/gas distributor.
brand new- $20."

I appreciate it. One thing though, are those "safe"? I'm still a little unclear on how safe you can render these with a burnout if they aren't unlined or good grade.

Huge thanks for that. I'll keep an eye out.

Thanks czar

UDS Headquarters
 

New to the forum ... The UDS thread brought me over. Made a little stop over to UDS MPLS headquarters today....(or you'd think it) hahaha Thanks for checkin out my pics.

https://i.imgur.com/EJ1mVzB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/f7BPaU4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/fzolgQD.jpg


Here is my starter kit:

https://i.imgur.com/ZlXnsWW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/83U8IIO.jpg

Are those stainless or just unpainted?

Hey Czar... unpainted, unlined and new. That's what I asked them for, and they were great. I got the link from this thread, and so thanks for the referral.

Intake Options..
 

Question for guys..... What is the best air intake at the bottom of the barrel? I have seen conflicting opinions. Some say the 3/4 pipe with valves are too small. Some say the sliders like from the BGE /Kamado Joes are too big. Some say the vent should be on the bottom of the barrel, instead of the side.

Anyone tried a few of these options and have it down where they'd do it the same way again on your next build(s)?

Thanks Larry

I have a related question, how many intakes do you need?

there are two air requirements in a UDS, getting up to temp, and keeping temp.

keeping temp requires surprising little air intake. a 3/4" hole would provide all the air needed assuming sufficient coals.

getting up to temp efficiently needs more air. I use two one inch intakes to get up to temp but then after that about half of a 3/4 intake can keep temp.

simplest option is probably a 2" ball valve and just close it down as you get to temp.

Depends on what you want to do with your drum, temps you want to cook at. Outside temps and conditions you cook in. How much food you will be cooking at one time. How easy to adjust/close. If/when wind/snow could blow directly into your drum spiking your temps or not.

This is why I went with the 3" hole under neath the drum with the foot lever from Hunsaker. I can leave it wide open for when I am getting to temp and move it down to barely an opening to keep it alive. Wind? What wind? :loco:

I have never had any issues with wind with my intake on the side. how much wind gets into half of a .75" opening?

My old WSM had the intakes on all 3 sides. It was a nightmare when there is a breeze. We get a lot of that up here in McKinney with no cityscapes for a windbreak.

I get some pretty windy conditions south of Houston too which is why I settled on the hunsaker style intake.

Well I guess a smoker that has a side to side draft could be affected by wind. My uds has intakes on one side and I've cooked in quite windy conditions no problems whatsoever.

Interesting. I was considering the vent on the bottom Hunsaker style as well..... UPDATE on my parts run. (pic) Need to start putting together the firebox and pan now. I'm going to use fan type diffuser on the top as well. Should be a fun build.... Also went with the heat deflector around the firebox... Stainless was 1.75 a pound for these cutoffs and the carbon was .60 a lb. Not bad...

https://i.imgur.com/KZK3CE4.jpg

looking good. good luck with the build.

Are those rods going to hang meat?

The threaded rod will sit in the middle of the firebox and the other one is for the wheels.... Heres more pics from the firebox build last night. Firebox and heat shield. Not much throat depth on my bandsaw so had to finish up the cuts with the cut off wheel and then deburr.

https://i.imgur.com/t5edWDc.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/IhlCKNn.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/vr8pFF7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/XnUgPGU.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/RvaEeF6.jpg

Nice! I wish I made my own... would like to customize some of the details but I don't have the hardware to do so.

I ran a test today to see how much intake my drum needs.

I was cooking direct over the coals. just one rack of spareribs.
using a weber kettle lid with vents fully open,
about 30% full of lump coals and 3 chunks of apple wood
. basket size 12hx17diameter
ambient temp was approx 60 degrees.

with only one 3/4" diameter opening and everything else tightly plugged, temp slowly climbed to 276° and may have gone higher if I hadnt put a stop to it.

so I plugged that opening tightly and drilled 2 3/8" diameter holes. two of these have half the area of one 3/4" opening.

temp slowly dropped to 235° and maintained for approx one hour. I opened the smoker to look at the ribs and temp shot up to 251° and seemed to stay there until I decided to pull the meat.

just my experience. your mileage will vary.

Thanks for testing, good info right there....

Thank you :)

Just note about how much intake air is required.
A lot of factors go into answering that question. Where you are located. Type of wind/weather/elevation.
Are you using any left over coals or only fresh coals.
Less air if using lump, more air if using briquettes. A lot more air if using used coals.
Winter time/cold weather, typically you need more intake than summer.
How much meat is loaded into said UDS. More meat, a bit more air.
More air when using drip pan.

You also need to look at how much exh for how much intake.

In other words, your mileage may vary? :biggrin1:

all those things and more will make a difference that why its important to have a system that lets a large amount of air in to get to temp, but can be adjusted in small steps to get to a set temp. its also important to know your drum.

I know that using a deflector will use more fuel, more air, and heat up the drum more.

going direct, using hardly any fuel, very little air, and does not heat up the drum very much.

Okay, so say you are stuck with a "food grade" barrel with the liner as your best purchase option (outside of exorbitant prices [$101] or driving several hours). How hard is that to actually get out. I've seen conflicting stories online. Some say one good fire and some wire brush is sufficient. Others say you might have to burn, brush, burn, brush, repeatedly to get it all. Anyone have any anecdotal evidence one way or another on this?

I did it once - on my first UDS. I believed that "food grade" was the only way to go. I was wrong- won't do it again.

Mine had the yellow epoxy /phenolic(?) liner. 1 good burn out with pallets, another partial burn out with tree branches and cuttings (ran out of pallets). Then had to partially climb inside it on my driveway (not a pretty picture) with a grinder/wheels, mask and hearing protection to get it to bare metal.

It was a character building exercise...not to be repeated. I never regretted doing it- I fully enjoyed my UDS. But it was way more involved than "drill a few holes, make a basket and Bob's your uncle"

Your experience may be better.

Since you ended up having to grind it from the inside anyway do you think that if you had done that from the beginning the burn would have been more effective? Or, were the fires necessary to make the grinding easier? If I could literally just grind I might actually prefer that to screwing with a toxic plastic fire in the backyard.

lets say you had to drive a couple of hours to get a barrel, and a couple of hours back.

so, say 4 hours total.

you'll probably spend 2x that much time getting a lined drum ready. remove liner, grind outside paint off, repaint, etc.

So, would you rather spend 8 hours grinding out liner, or 4 hours driving listening to music?

I know what my choice would be.

HAHA. Good point. Still, my cheapness of not wanting to spend money on gas if I don't have to might still win out. Also this place that's a couple hours away is only open Monday through Friday so there's the matter of getting off work which is potentially problematic.

Cough, sick day, cough.

I don't know if anyone tried this but it worked for me pretty well. After a big fire to blister the paint inside and out, I put a few shovels of rock and a little sand with 5 or 10 gallons of water in my drum. Put the lid on with the clamp and rolled it around for a few minutes. Must be done before adding nipples of course.
It scrubbed it out pretty good. Made shinning it up wih a coarse scotch pad easy.

prepping a lined drum is not free either.

"Since you ended up having to grind it from the inside anyway do you think that if you had done that from the beginning the burn would have been more effective? Or, were the fires necessary to make the grinding easier? If I could literally just grind I might actually prefer that to screwing with a toxic plastic fire in the backyard."

That liner (thin as it is) is pretty rugged- you "need" the fire to break it down. Even after a good burn, the liner removal is still tedious. IF you just wanted to tackle it with grinder/brush wheels/ flap wheels- I guess you could give it a go. Set it up horizontally on some saw horses and a "comfortable" height (it won't be comfortable for long) and get after it.

Okay. I think you all have me convinced. If I do this, new drum it is. Frankly at this point the pit barrel cooker or something similar with a porcelain enamel coating is starting to sound pretty attractive.

lol blue kettle you crack me up.

you say you are cheap and dont want to order a new drum for $101 but not so cheap that you dont mind spending $300 on a premade kit?


the pbc is a good UDS - you'll enjoy it.

remind me again why are you not just sticking to your kettle?

You know, I've been asking myself that also. The initial idea was I wanted something closer to set it and forget it and with longer burn times. An initial inquiry on my very first post on here had multiple people tell me a UDS was the way to go. I'm a do it yourselfer type so the idea of building my own smoker is cool to me. But I've also got some white elephants around the house where I've never finished projects. So for me, its a balance between how cool building a really functional smoker sounds, and the reality of possibly ending up with a bucket of bolts taking up space in the garage that I never get done the way I want to. In which case the spending some additional cash and getting a PBC or Barrel House Cooker or Smokey Mountain sounds pretty good.

I know, it's sort of nutty.

I wont try to convince you either way as only you know your personal situation but building a uds from an unlined drum and metal bucket is something that will take you two hours if you take an hour long break while building it.

good luck with whatever decision you take.

while contemplating your choice you should work on the temp management of your kettle - for starters, the bottom adjustment are too big for fine control of air. I would try closing that off and controlling the "pit" with just the top vents. put as much charcoal as you can pile on one side.

if you cant get it with just the top vents, then drill a new intake hole/s that have fine adjustability.

you might be able to solve your issue without spending more than 5 bucks.

Thanks. I was THIS close to ordering a BBQ guru party Q one day to get the set it and forget it thing, but I'm a bit unsure of drilling a hole in the kettle. It has sentimental value to me even if that sounds sort of nuts also.

Mines 39 years old and I can't get myself to drill a hole for the temperature probe.:roll:

So I have about 5 real cooks in my UDS with the vortex charcoal box. I thought it would be a set it and forget it but it's just like my old WSM. I'm constantly adjusting the intake because my temps will bounce from 225 to 325, but I do like how I can change the temps on the dime... it just travels sometimes. But once I wrapped, it cruised at 298 for 2 hours and leveled out at 275 for the next 4. But that was already at the 7 hour mark though. The obvious factors are my spritzing time but still... I figured it would be more stable than this.

Maybe it's time for that guru?

You open the lid to spritz, the coals get a big gulp of oxygen. Think of it as opening a 22.5" diameter intake. Try shutting the vents before opening the lid.

With the uds if you open the lid the temps will jump big-time and only way to get it down quickly would be to spray water on it.

You also have to sneak up on. The temps. And it doesn't take a lot of intake for the temps to run away from you.

Having said that, an auto controller is not a bad idea.

Stubby UDS
 

We have a female family friend who is vertically challenged but really wants a UDS.
N8man had built a short UDS quite a few years ago. :hail: His chicken cooker. I don't believe those photos are still available. A quick few designs/measurements. Off to build in this teen's to below zero weather.
I got a used drum, cut the height to 24" tall. I'll use the cut off top to make a firepit for said person.
With the 24" drum, 7.5" legs ( I added wheels on the rear for easy mobility). That brings the drum/top grill grate to 32" high. Same as a Weber kettle.
6" down from the top grate is the second grate. 4" below that for holding a drip pan/diffuser. 3" legs on the coal basket ( she won't be doing overnight cooks). Lots of room above the coal basket if mods are required.
2-1.5" pipe elbows for intakes (she wants to be able to do pizza's). 2- magnets to control intakes. Same as all my other cookers. Water proof and easy to adjust/use in any weather.
I rolled a metal ring that I inserted/welded into the hole I cut where the original 5 hole exh was. The original exh was NEVER going to seal! Stupid location on the radius of the lid for a Weber copy exh. Both top/bottom edges wouldn't touch the lid. So this is how I fixed that. Trying to keep this on the cheap side.
The drum needed handles for easy moving. 2- welding hammers..cool touch handles. $6 ea. Another hammer for the lid handle. :biggrin1:
Handle/bar on the side to hold the lid and tongs etc. The hammer handles are great for hanging your cooking grates on.
17" Weber coal grate with 6" high expanded metal.
To cold to paint the thing. It was 18* out when I brought it outside to fire it up. (14* inside my garage) I know I can not see all that well anymore. But a frosted up welding helmet sure doesn't help. Just don't breath when the helmet is on. :crazy:

I fired the stubby up using only used coals from my other drum. No wood added. 25 mins and I'm at 600* and holding. Let that ride for 20 or so minutes. Brought the temp down to 275* and let it go for another hour. I'll be smoking a couple fatties soon.
Wife doesn't want me to paint it. She thinks it looks like R2D2. We'll see what the the friend wants.
This drum was for holding canola oil. No liner.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/CURj2r.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/k9re7U.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/Sc9AYb.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/zv3O5z.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/gEUblF.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/K3D9vY.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/WQ149y.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/ackz5O.jpggeshack.com/i/poJ2NpGtj]https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/J2NpGt.jpg[/URL]

great work as always

I didn't realize luchador put his drum on Craigslist :heh:

https://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/fo...456667242.html

That's my stick burner. And stick burners just don't do anything for me. Not enough flavor :boxing:
:rockon:

A very nice innovative build.
I'm curious about the pizza comment. What does that mean?