Build A Barrel Smoker That Really Works
My home-made barrel smoker has to be cheapest smoker that I have made to date, the material costs have been absolutely minimal and I have to say that the time to build my barrel smoker was only about three hours.
Here is how I did it.
I first required a 55 gallon agricultural feed drum from from a local agricultural merchant.
I use the term acquired lightly in the fact that my merchant friend was obliged to pay the disposal of these barrels so he was more than happy to off-load one (or more) in my direction at no cost.
What a result! So what other items of hardware required? I bought three circular cooking grates in order to create three shelves in the smoke chamber.
The lower shelf would support the water bath, (which will also act as a crude smoke spreader) and the two other grates would be where I would put the food for cooking.
So on this basis I bought a very cheap lower cooking grate for about $10 off of Amazon and spent a little more on the upper cooking grates to get porcelain enameled ones for ease of cleaning.
In addition I bought nine 4 inch bolts to act as shelf supports for the cooking grates and a gas burner.
The gas burner is specifically designed for a paella pan and is ideal for placing under the barrel because it has a long neck to the control valve and this makes for easy temperature regulation during the cooking process.
The first job is to cut a hole in the base of the barrel and I did this by marking out my circular hole with a center punch and then drilling out a sequence of holes in the base before cutting between the holes with a set of tin snips.
A very crude can opener I accept, but it works.
I could quite easily have taken the entire base out of the barrel but I didn't for two reasons.
The first is that the bigger the hole, the greater susceptibility I would have to the elements and wind in particular which would make the burner less efficient or even blow it out altogether.
The second point is that by leaving the outline of the base position I maintained the rigid structure of the barrel.
I then drilled the holes in the side of the barrel so that I could place the shelf bolts in position, three screws for each shelf and at intervals of 6 inches.
I ensured that the top shelf was sufficiently far below the lid of the barrel so that I could get my chicken on a vertical roaster in the top part of the smoke chamber.
So the first shelf was 18 inches below the lid.
The final construction was to surround the burner with bricks, frog side down, I then placed the barrel on the bricks and was ready to go.
I lit the burner and found that with a little gentle regulation of the burner combined with a small opening in the lid, I was able to control temperature and the movement of smoke through the smoke chamber with ease.
I haven't yet built a brick smoker so I guess that this has to be next on the agenda, but given how well this barrel smoker performs, I think I'll leave that project for another year or so.
Here is how I did it.
I first required a 55 gallon agricultural feed drum from from a local agricultural merchant.
I use the term acquired lightly in the fact that my merchant friend was obliged to pay the disposal of these barrels so he was more than happy to off-load one (or more) in my direction at no cost.
What a result! So what other items of hardware required? I bought three circular cooking grates in order to create three shelves in the smoke chamber.
The lower shelf would support the water bath, (which will also act as a crude smoke spreader) and the two other grates would be where I would put the food for cooking.
So on this basis I bought a very cheap lower cooking grate for about $10 off of Amazon and spent a little more on the upper cooking grates to get porcelain enameled ones for ease of cleaning.
In addition I bought nine 4 inch bolts to act as shelf supports for the cooking grates and a gas burner.
The gas burner is specifically designed for a paella pan and is ideal for placing under the barrel because it has a long neck to the control valve and this makes for easy temperature regulation during the cooking process.
The first job is to cut a hole in the base of the barrel and I did this by marking out my circular hole with a center punch and then drilling out a sequence of holes in the base before cutting between the holes with a set of tin snips.
A very crude can opener I accept, but it works.
I could quite easily have taken the entire base out of the barrel but I didn't for two reasons.
The first is that the bigger the hole, the greater susceptibility I would have to the elements and wind in particular which would make the burner less efficient or even blow it out altogether.
The second point is that by leaving the outline of the base position I maintained the rigid structure of the barrel.
I then drilled the holes in the side of the barrel so that I could place the shelf bolts in position, three screws for each shelf and at intervals of 6 inches.
I ensured that the top shelf was sufficiently far below the lid of the barrel so that I could get my chicken on a vertical roaster in the top part of the smoke chamber.
So the first shelf was 18 inches below the lid.
The final construction was to surround the burner with bricks, frog side down, I then placed the barrel on the bricks and was ready to go.
I lit the burner and found that with a little gentle regulation of the burner combined with a small opening in the lid, I was able to control temperature and the movement of smoke through the smoke chamber with ease.
I haven't yet built a brick smoker so I guess that this has to be next on the agenda, but given how well this barrel smoker performs, I think I'll leave that project for another year or so.
Source...