Thread: Building my own
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Old 07-30-2007, 08:53 PM   #1
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Join Date: 07-28-07
Location: Crowland, Lincolnshire. UK.
Default Building my own

Hi, just joined your excellent forum after looking for inspiration on the 'net, and finding it! I have laboured under the delusion for years, as most in England and apparrently Australia do, that our habit of turning perfectly good meat into cinders come summer is actually barbecueing. I wish to redress this by building a smoker and learning the secrets.
I've 'obtained' two old propane cylinders, one about 5ft long the other about 2.5 ft, both 20" diameter, to use as the cooking chamber and firebox. I am also lucky enough to work somewhere where they threw out (yes threw out, idiots!) 10 perfectly good 900x600x3mm sheets of 304L stainless steel, as well as several lengths of thick-walled 1" square tube. Now, I only intend this to be for backyard use so it won't be built onto a trailer but it'll hopefully fit into my utility trailer which I use to lug all sorts of stuff about.
Anyway, I've already picked up some invaluable information about baffles and tuning plates. My thinking is to mount the firebox cylinder vertically and make it in such a way as it has a removable lid so I can use it as a chargriller if I want to (this may be subject to change). This will allow me to install a big enough stainless steel firebasket to provide sufficient heat for the cooker. Knowing what I've only recently learned I'll be adding a baffle and tuning plates, as well as a well-sealing air inlet on the firebox and an exhaust damper in the stack. The doors will have rope seals and temperature gauges.
I've looked at a schematic of the various layouts of smokers and wanted to ask opinions on standard flow (one end to t'other) versus reverse flow, since I'm in a position to make it either at this stage. Is one inherently better than the other or are they about the same?
Since I've got all this stainless kicking about I was thinking of adding an extra vertical smoke chamber in the exhaust path as I've seen some commercially-produced designs have, are these there for lower temperature smoking or just to maximise heat use and smoking capacity?
Sorry this i sa lot of questions but I want to try and get it right first time if I can
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