I was laid up for a little while and it took me a while to get my smoker to a usable state, but it is there and has had a pork shoulder cooked in it for its inaugural smoke. We spent the weekend of June 30 with some friends who were kind enough to let me use their shop and yard to finish the smoker and were thus able to share some pulled pork with them. Everybody was happy with how it came out and I have to say it is one of the easier pork shoulders I've ever done. There is still some tweaking to be done with air intake and it needs another coat of paint, but for all practical purposes it is done and able to produce ample amounts of smoky deliciousness. Here is what it looks like. Following will be a description of the steps I had to take after burning out the smoker to get it to a state where I could cook with it.
First, other than the vessel itself I needed something for the handle, the charcoal basket/firebox, grill thermometer, cooking grate and an assortment of screws and washers to put the grate and handle on.
- Grate: I got a weber grate for their 22 1/2" kettle grill. The diameter of the grate is just over 21" and it fit about perfectly into the can. Most people suggest not getting the grates that flip up to allow you to put more charcoal in, but that was the only type of grate I could find.
- Charcoal basket: Directions abound online for how to make a charcoal basket. What I ended up using is one of the deep cooking baskets you would use on the grill top for cooking things like shrimp or vegetables. The sides aren't quite deep enough for the amount of fuel you would need for a long cook. I plan on getting a charcoal grate and some expanded metal and making my own as described here . This basket was rested on 3 bricks to allow the ashes to fall away as the charcoal was burning.
- Screws, lock washers and fender washers were picked up at the hardware store. If memory serves I got 10/32 screws that were 2 inches long for placing the grate and a couple of 3/4 inch screws for attaching the handle to the lid.
- The handle itself is a wooden dowel and two L brackets. Very simple. The brackets are attached to the dowel with wood screws.
- The grate I put just above the lip at the bottom of the first section of the barrel. One tip I found that was extremely helpful was to just use 3 screws instead of the usually suggested 4 to rest the grate on. Triangles are stronger shapes than squares and this saves you from having to be exact in the height of the screws. If the screws are not perfectly level the grate will still be stable.
- Thermometer. I found a char-broil replacement thermometer and used that. One tip for mounting this is to put the 300 degree mark right around high noon. If you are BBQ'ing anything I can't imagine ever wanting to go over 300 degrees. This will make it easy to see if you are running the smoker at too high of a temperature.
- Paint. 2 cans of blue engine enamel and one can of yellow exhaust paint.
Cost for all the parts was about $2 for the screws and washers, $18 for the grate, $8 for the basket, $6 for the handle parts, and somewhere around $10 for the temperature gauge. So about $44 total for the parts. The paint was around $22 for the 3 cans of paint. Total cost was right around $96 including the barrel itself.
After getting the barrel burned out we removed rust, remaining paint and anything else from the outside. To do this we used a combination of a soda blaster, wire brush, rotary sander and grinding wheel. The soda blaster did the best job on the left over paint. The wire brush did the best job on the rust. The grinding wheel took down the burrs from the holes I drilled and the sander finished things up. After sanding the outside and cleaning out the inside the whole thing was wiped down with a rag and acetone to get any debris off. Then it was painted with the enamel. After the enamel was dry the handle was attached to the lid and the thermometer attached to the barrel. Then I measured around the barrel to figure out how far apart the screws needed to be for holding the grate. The circumference of the barrel was almost 72", so the holes were put 24" apart. The first hole for the grate was drilled just where the metal starts to bow out for the lip at the bottom of the first section. Then that was measured and the two other holes were drilled at the same height.
To attach the screws for the grate a fender washer was put on the inside, then a lock washer on top of that and then the nut on top of that. When the screws were attached the grate was dropped in. As long as the weight is anywhere near the center, the grate is very stable. After making sure the grate was stable, I put 3 bricks in the bottom of the smoker, put the pan for the charcoal basket on top of that, put a chimney of charcoal in the basket, then got another chimney of charcoal started in the chimney. I coated the inside of the entire smoker with a liberal dose of cooking spray. When the charcoal in the chimney was good and hot, I dropped it on top of the unlit charcoal in the basket, put the grate in, sprayed the grate then dropped the pork shoulder in and put the lid on.
For most of the time it was cooking it was pegged at 200 degrees. I had to add some more fuel about 4 1/2 hours into cooking to finish it up as the temp dropped down to about 175 degrees. All told the shoulder was on for about 6 1/2 hours and it came out great.
Future Enhancements
- As stated above, some more holes need to be drilled out for greater air intake. I would have preferred the smoker to be running just a touch hotter, maybe around 225 degrees.
- Vent covers for controlling the air flow on windy days that might have the smoker running too hot. A frequent suggestion I have found is refrigerator magnets. I'll start with those and see how it works out.
- Another coat of paint. Including a yellow block M.
- A 2nd grate near the top of the smoker. This will allow me to do vast quantities shallower food like ribs and turkey drumsticks along with pork shoulders, briskets and whole chickens on the main grate.
- If I can find a lid for a 22 1/2" grill I'll pick that up. That will allow me to use the 2nd grate for another level of pork shoulder.
That is, I think, everything related to building my first smoker. The food it turned out was great. If you have a weekend or two to spare and care about your BBQ and don't want to spend a lot of money on something resembling a commercial grade smoker I would highly recommend building your own. People have won big competitions cooking on these things. They can obviously turn out great food.
