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    How To Build Your Own Smoker From A 55-Gallon Drum

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    kassambara18499
    This document provides instructions for building a smoker out of a 55-gallon steel drum, known as an Ugly Drum Smoker (UDS). It requires basic tools like a power drill, hole saw, and drill bits. The drum should be open-head style and free of any epoxy liner. Assembly involves cutting vent holes, fabricating a charcoal basket, and installing a cooking grate. With some resourcefulness, the project can be completed for around $200 and results in a high-capacity homemade smoker, though it may not be as aesthetically pleasing as a store-bought model. Subsequent steps will cover additional parts and the assembly process.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    How To Build Your Own Smoker From A 55-Gallon Drum

    Uploaded by

    kassambara18499
    169 views4 pages
    This document provides instructions for building a smoker out of a 55-gallon steel drum, known as an Ugly Drum Smoker (UDS). It requires basic tools like a power drill, hole saw, and drill bits. The drum should be open-head style and free of any epoxy liner. Assembly involves cutting vent holes, fabricating a charcoal basket, and installing a cooking grate. With some resourcefulness, the project can be completed for around $200 and results in a high-capacity homemade smoker, though it may not be as aesthetically pleasing as a store-bought model. Subsequent steps will cover additional parts and the assembly process.

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    Original Title

    55GallonDrumSMoker

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    This document provides instructions for building a smoker out of a 55-gallon steel drum, known as an Ugly Drum Smoker (UDS). It requires basic tools like a power drill, hole saw, and drill bits. The drum should be open-head style and free of any epoxy liner. Assembly involves cutting vent holes, fabricating a charcoal basket, and installing a cooking grate. With some resourcefulness, the project can be completed for around $200 and results in a high-capacity homemade smoker, though it may not be as aesthetically pleasing as a store-bought model. Subsequent steps will cover additional parts and the assembly process.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    169 views4 pages

    How To Build Your Own Smoker From A 55-Gallon Drum

    Uploaded by

    kassambara18499
    This document provides instructions for building a smoker out of a 55-gallon steel drum, known as an Ugly Drum Smoker (UDS). It requires basic tools like a power drill, hole saw, and drill bits. The drum should be open-head style and free of any epoxy liner. Assembly involves cutting vent holes, fabricating a charcoal basket, and installing a cooking grate. With some resourcefulness, the project can be completed for around $200 and results in a high-capacity homemade smoker, though it may not be as aesthetically pleasing as a store-bought model. Subsequent steps will cover additional parts and the assembly process.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    The document discusses how to build a smoker from a 55-gallon steel drum in a do-it-yourself manner with limited costs. Some key steps involved are finding a suitable drum, removing the epoxy liner, cutting holes for ventilation, and assembling the parts.

    Some pros are low cost and high capacity for its size. However, it has no aesthetic appeal and is not suitable for grilling. More complex designs can cost as much as a ready-made smoker.

    Finding a used drum that is in good condition without dents and has a lid that fits well can be challenging. Cheap used drums tend to be damaged while ones in good condition often cost more money.

    How To Build Your Own

    Smoker From A 55-


    Gallon Drum

    ProfessorSalt.com
    Almost complete, minus paint job and a few fittings

    In the world of competition barbecue, there's a saying: "It's not the cooker, it's the cook." That
    means that in a blind tasting, you can't tell if the end result was cooked in a modern commercial-
    grade smoker, or in an ad hoc, BBQ pit made from a stack of cinder blocks and a sheet of
    plywood for a lid. It really comes down the the cook's ability to control the heat and smoke
    inside a cooker.

    Today, we'll show you how turn a 55-gallon steel drum into a very rudimentary yet effective
    home-made smoker called an Ugly Drum Smoker, or UDS for short.
    Pros:
    • Appeals to the do-it-yourselfer who wants a save a little money. The cost of the build will
    vary depending on your resourcefulness and handyman skills. By the time you're done,
    you can easily spend $200 in parts for this DIY project.
    • Has a high capacity for its size.

    Cons:
    • There's nothing pretty about it. Ugly isn't even its middle name, it's the first name.
    • This is a dedicated smoker. It won't work well as a grill.
    • If you pursue a more complex variation, you can spend as much money as Weber's 22.5"
    Smokey Mountain cooker, which has the same capacity as a UDS and is a ready-made,
    good-looking piece of equipment with an internet price of $350.

    Why an upright layout instead of a horizontal layout that's sliced in half, you ask? By keep the
    metal cutting to a minimum, it leaks less air than a drum sliced in half lengthwise. Less air
    leakage means it's easier to control your fire and the temperature in your smoker.

    Any wood-and-charcoal-burning smoker works on the principle of flame + airflow = heat. Your
    task as a pit builder is to create enough air intake vents and exhaust vents to give a clean,
    controlled combustion, and a method to fine-tune those vents to regulate the airflow.

    This week, we'll start by gathering some tools, and the steel drum.

    You'll need:
    Power drill
    1" hole saw (to cut vent holes)
    Various drill bits
    Cutting oil
    Eye protection
    Step drill bit (optional, but is nice to have)

    You'll want a 55 gallon drum because it's diameter is 23 inches, or exactly the right size to fit a
    food grate from a 22.5" Weber kettle grill. Since replacement grates are easy to find at most any
    hardware store, as are many of the nuts and bolts we'll use, the trickiest parts of the project are
    finding an appropriate drum and fabricating a charcoal basket.

    Steel drums come in several styles: closed heads that are welded on both ends, or open head,
    which lift off on one end. You want the open head style.

    Drums may be lined on the inside with either a soft plastic film or a hard epoxy liner. Or it
    might not be lined at all if it held petroleum products. Food-grade drums typically have an hard
    epoxy liner to protect the steel from corrosive ingredients like lemon juice concentrate, and you
    want to remove that liner before you cook in it.

    ProfessorSalt.com
    The red epoxy liner of death
    How? That epoxy liner-of-death is tough stuff. You stick you head in the barrel and go to work
    with an angle grinder for a couple of hours, and still not manage to remove it all. Or you can pay
    someone to sandblast the inside for $40. Precision Powdercoating in Santa Ana has sandblasted
    three of my drums, and they do a fine job.
    ProfessorSalt.com
    You can spend hours grinding out the epoxy liner, or just pay a sandblaster...

    The challenge of a UDS build is to find a used drum for next to nothing that's not dented, with
    a lid that fits just so. You don't want to struggle to seat or to remove the lid. Typically, you
    can have two of the three. Cheap used drums are usually beat to hell, and drums that are in great
    condition usually cost some money.

    You can find used 55 gallon drums for $15 on Craigslist, a $40 reconditioned, unlined drum
    from Ditty Container of South El Monte, or drive to Santa Fe Springs to buy a brand new drum
    starting at $85 from McMaster-Carr. Factor in your time and gas driving around, the cost of
    sandblasting an epoxy-lined drum, and you may be better off buying a new, unlined drum, but let
    your budget decide.

    Next time: we'll get into the other parts you'll need and the actual build itself.

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