Post Pics of your Smokers!!

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Chuckwagon
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Post by Chuckwagon » Sun Feb 26, 2012 02:46

Mama Mia, thatz za som a kinda Big Bertha! And to think I started out using an empty 50 gallon drum :mrgreen:
Just one question my boy... does it do your laundry too?
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
story28
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Post by story28 » Sun Feb 26, 2012 17:38

It should for all that $! I am a simple mid-westerner who was doing the whole barrel thing like you growing up. Even in restaurants, I had never used something like this, so it took some time just hitting different functions or little things like watching the amount of wood chips that fall to the hot plate or how long the auger rotates them around before they drop.

UltraSource also has a food technologist under their employ. He is pretty well educated and very helpful with my tedious questions.

I could shower in it though, but Carolina said no :wink:
sstory
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Post by sstory » Tue Mar 20, 2012 17:26

Here's a link to pictures of my smoker build. It's a clone of a Stumps gravity fed smoker.

http://pix.kg/p/904201182507%3A1759639724/scl

As you can see, this smoker has gone through some changes - started on pneumatic casters, then a small trailer to its current home on a 4 x 8 trailer with a roof.

Also had to do a rebuild on the chute after I burned through 1/4" steel in 6 months. The new chute has stainless steel for the bottom part of the chute.

I cold smoke cheese in the winter and now I want to get into making/smoking sausage as well.
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Post by eightysixCJ » Tue Mar 20, 2012 17:41

Beautiful craftsmanship! The 1/4" plate burned through that quickly? Good to know for my next project.

Tom
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Post by sstory » Tue Mar 20, 2012 18:04

Tom, I use a Stoker on my smoker with a 5cfm fan that maintains the fire burning in the chute -- this allows me to maintain +/- 2 degrees during a cook. Due to the fan, it creates a forge affect in the chute which is why I burned through the 1/4" steel. The stainless steel hasn't shown any signs of burning through, but I have warped it pretty good.

I love this smoker. Besides all of the meat that I have smoked over the years (we also do competition BBQ), I've done things like pizza, cobbler, chocolate chip cookies (these were great with apple wood for smoke), meat loaf, corn on the cob (still in the husks) and several other snack type of foods that are cooked at 250*F.

But making sausage is completely new to me so I'm doing a lot of reading on this forum -- some great information here.
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Post by ssorllih » Tue Mar 20, 2012 18:04

SStory , you must be burning your fires very hot. Perhaps you should line the combustion chamber with fire brick. Do you have the draft control that will allow you to choke off the air supply completely and snuff the fire?
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by sstory » Tue Mar 20, 2012 18:59

Ross, there are several of us that have built this type of smoker. I think a few of them have done the fire brick to help prevent the issues I've had. If I have to repair again, I'll probably look into that as well.

And to answer your question, yes I have a draft control system (a Stoker) that uses a 5cfm fan that controls the amount of oxygen in the chute (where the burning of fuel is happening). The fan is attached to a ball valve that I can completely close after a cook. I use lump charcoal as the heat source so I don't like to snuff it out at the end of a cook. I have done that in that past, but the binders from the lump charcoal form a layer on the ash grate which clogs up and doesn't allow ashes to fall through properly. So now I just pull the fan out after a cook, close the ball valve down a bit and just let it burn the rest of the charcoal in the chute. I try to fill it with as much lump as I think it will take for a cook -- a full chute of lump will burn about 7-8 hours.
Steve
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Post by ssorllih » Tue Mar 20, 2012 19:10

I used to use charcoal in a small forge and with the blower cranking I could heat steel to a bright yellow. Maybe you are fanning the fire a little too much.
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by Butterbean » Tue Mar 20, 2012 19:30

This is Wilbur - one of my builds. I designed it to make use of surplus pecan wood that I'm constantly having to pick up and burn. The goal was to create a do-all smoker that would BBQ, hot smoke and cold smoke. Essentially, just has a fire box on the right and a reverse flow smoker in the center and a smoke tower on the right. Four dampers control the smoke and heat. The results have been really good in that Wilbur is very stubborn and once you have the fire set you can pretty much leave him alone to do his thing. In cold smoking, I've learned if I bank the wood and close down the dampers I can cold smoke a day with one filling of wood assuming the ambient temperature isn't too hot. If you are simply smoking meat at 225F or hot smoking at 175F all you need do is remember to toss three sticks of wood in the firebox every hour.

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Post by ssorllih » Tue Mar 20, 2012 20:31

Old LPG tanks? nice work and good use.
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by Oxide » Tue Mar 20, 2012 20:44

Butterbean, I'm going to go ahead and let Al Gore know we found the source of global warming -- it's in your backyard. :mrgreen:

I watched a YouTube vid of a guy that used a 220gl tank for the smoker, and a smaller tank like the ones you used for the fire box. He built it on a trailer, it's a beauty!

Locally, I have found empty propane tanks for about $1/gal, up to 200+ gals. Problem is weight and moving the things.
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Post by ssorllih » Tue Mar 20, 2012 21:01

Time to bring in the engineers and define the purpose and the need. How many meals to be prepared? how much sausage to hang and smoke? How much bacon to hang and smoke? How many pigs at one time will be processed.
I wouldn't buy a five ton truck if all I was hauling was one dead pig.
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by Butterbean » Tue Mar 20, 2012 22:37

There is a graveyard for the tanks not far from the house and I can pick them up very cheap. They are heavy but the thickness of the steel keeps the temperature consistant once you set the temp. True, its large but its also versitile but apparantly its not big enough since I have another one a bit larger and I have maxed out my space twice alread. Time for another build I think. While I agree its not seem practical to fire this up for one chicken, I do have tons of wood that has to be disposed of and I also have a list of people who are more than grateful if I find room on Wilbur for their cut of meat so I can't really say I've ever cooked just a little. Besides, if I gotta burn the wood anyway, what's the harm in its smoke wafting over some meat before I piss Al Gore off. :lol:
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Post by ssorllih » Wed Mar 21, 2012 00:38

You could always rent them out for big bashes. My brothers put together a BBQ for a family reunion. About food minus thirty minutes a pick-up truck rolled in with a black tank cooker on wheels on the hitch. When they opened it there was half a hog in there done to the point of falling off the bones. One of the men that hauled in said ,"nobody will get sick on that."
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Post by Butterbean » Wed Mar 21, 2012 01:46

A couple of years ago I did a whole hog for a college team and two sororities. You should have seen the puzzled look on some of the girls' faces. It was priceless. Once they got the hang of it they polished it off though and everyone had a great time.
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