samann
Well-known member
Don't know if this is of any interest, but I made a pretty nice smoker out of an old water pressure tank:
First I cut the fire door opening and removed the bladder: (nasty and smelly)
Next is removing a safety dome located about 2/3 of the way up inside the tank: (This is used for the air regulator later)
After that is removed I could cut the main door
The next step was cleaning all the rust out of the inside, probably a good thing I didn't know in advance how much work that was going to be.
Now that is was all cleaned up, I attached the doors and welded on the strap metal: (you can see the bladder and liner in the box in the 2nd picture)
For the inside I installed (3)- 21 1/2" cooking grates and a 20" heat deflector (an old disc plate, very heavy duty) there is about 9" between grates and 7" between the heat deflector and bottom grate.(I use those disposable foil turkey roasters for my drip/water pan.
I built a weber-style air regulator using the safety dome I cut out earlier:
Than I made a short stack out of 4" pipe and installed a stove baffle for a little added control.
The last job that ended up being more work than I thought was stripping off the old paint, the light blue came off easy, but there was a brown primer that was a bear to remove.
In the end, I got a nice nice flat black high temp finish on it
I located temp. guages at the 1st and 3rd grates, when everything gets dialed in they are bottom grate is about 40 degrees hotter than the top.
The capacity is pretty good for a vertical, I've had 10 butts on at one time and it could go 12 if needed...probably 6 whole briskets.
I didn't think it was bad for a first effort.
First I cut the fire door opening and removed the bladder: (nasty and smelly)
Next is removing a safety dome located about 2/3 of the way up inside the tank: (This is used for the air regulator later)
After that is removed I could cut the main door
The next step was cleaning all the rust out of the inside, probably a good thing I didn't know in advance how much work that was going to be.
Now that is was all cleaned up, I attached the doors and welded on the strap metal: (you can see the bladder and liner in the box in the 2nd picture)
For the inside I installed (3)- 21 1/2" cooking grates and a 20" heat deflector (an old disc plate, very heavy duty) there is about 9" between grates and 7" between the heat deflector and bottom grate.(I use those disposable foil turkey roasters for my drip/water pan.
I built a weber-style air regulator using the safety dome I cut out earlier:
Than I made a short stack out of 4" pipe and installed a stove baffle for a little added control.
The last job that ended up being more work than I thought was stripping off the old paint, the light blue came off easy, but there was a brown primer that was a bear to remove.
In the end, I got a nice nice flat black high temp finish on it
I located temp. guages at the 1st and 3rd grates, when everything gets dialed in they are bottom grate is about 40 degrees hotter than the top.
The capacity is pretty good for a vertical, I've had 10 butts on at one time and it could go 12 if needed...probably 6 whole briskets.
I didn't think it was bad for a first effort.
