Air intakes on 16 gal miniUDS for grilling

Hi all,

Lurker and first time poster here.

I have a 16 gal / 60L drum that I not only want to use it as an UDS but also for conventional charcoal grilling by lifting the charcoal basket up when doing so.
Also I'd put a thin metal annulus around the basket such that the air has to travel through it making the coal burning even hotter.
So my goal is to have very high temps when conventionally grilling and still being able to use the miniUDS for slow jobs as well.
Hell, maybe even use it for a pizza here and there, so 500°C /930°F would be awesome to be reachable., making it kinda a universal miniUDS.

Now the question is: should I go with big air intakes?
A reasonable possibility would be 4 x 2 inch pipes, one with a ball valve and the other three with caps.

Would that be overkill for grilling and should I go with 3/4 or 1 inch instead?


Andy

Nuco59 said:

Not sure how to answer your question about intakes that will satisfy all your check boxes. It has been said here that "bigger is better". You can always choke an intake down- hard to make it bigger than it already is. More intake is only part of it- you will need more exhaust too. That daisy wheel on the smoky joe lid won't cut it if you up the intake too much.

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Yeah by far most people use their UDS as a single use device not interested in high temps anyway.
The few ones with big air intakes don't write anything about conventional grilling, presumably because they use their dedicated grill like you do.
Or the ones that have tried grilling on theirs had mixed reviews, but usually on 55 gal drums with 3/4 or 1 inch intakes.

I think I'd only use the grill for sizzling without the lid, but it should be no problem to get more holes with a metal star slider on the lid to accomodate the additional airflow (in case that cooking pizza is realistic after some test driving where it bottoms out on heat).

Nuco59 said:

But I have a weber silver 22-1/2" that is a far better grill than the 16 gallon UDS ever could be.

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By writing this do you mean no chance even with 4 2" intakes to get on par to a dedicated grill or more that with yours and their limitations there is no saying what my idea can turn out to be?

Pife said:

I've built a couple of these. On the last one, I used a (I believe) a Lavalock air inlet product sold by uds parts.com

They are simple to install, cheap and work well. I have two on my half barrel grill.

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Yeah I thought about the Lavalock air inlets or any other similar style but am pretty set of just using pipes, even though they might be quite the toe hazard, thus a friendly reminder that something is standing in the way :loco: