SmokerBuilder.com

Well still trying to get this thing to cook with just wood. So far the Alder creates too much smoke and burns down to ash, no bed of coals. Works great with charcoal, kingsford cost too much, home made stuff works well but burns a lot of fuel. I tried the wild cherry on Sunday. It smoked like heck e...

Have cooked a few times since this mod. Once the fire stabilizes the temps on the top and bottom racks are pretty much the same. I'd call it a success.
Having the lower part of the baffle removable may be handy if I wanted different temps top to bottom.

Been a while, Never did buy any lump to compare. Used the homemade stuff in the reverse flow, worked OK but burned twice as much as I would if it was Kingsford. Although I made one batch with wild cherry I didn't get a chance to make much more this winter and now we have a complete burning ban on th...

Yes it was quite interesting to see how that home made one worked compared to mine. Wood is scarce there now and cutting teak is banned. Used to be poorer people built their houses with wood and rich folks used concrete, now it's the other way around. They salvage any pieces of wood they can get. Wh...

After seeing Al's kiln I plan on using block instead of the outer drum in my kiln, I think the block will insulate better than the steel drum and may cut down on fuel needed for the process.

I'm fortunate enough to have had a group of great friends for the last forty or so years. One such saw fit to get me and my wife to there place in Thailand, where we met up with five others whom I skydived with in the 70s and 80s along with our wives. Al,said friend, has a charcoal kiln on his prope...

A week yesterday was wild card weekend and what better way to watch football than enjoy some hot chicken pieces? I filled a chimney with my home made charcoal and started it up. It lit quite quickly, almost like a chimney of kindling. I put the lit charcoal in a Weber kettle and burned off the grill...

Crazy? Well they do call me 'Mad Man". I'll compare the home made stuff with some store bought. If it burns close it will be worth the trouble, if not??? It was fun watching the drum in 'launch mode' As far as the road sign, was that over the top? I'm sure most drivers will still know what the sign ...

Yesterday I tried a smaller fire and between doing my year end sales taxes [yuck] added wood every hour or so. After 4 hours of cooking the can there wasn't much going on that I could observe. I split up some cedar and threw it in just to get some high flame going. HOLY BLAST FURNACE!!! The gasses s...

I started the fire and blocked off one opening in the blocks once things warmed up. The ground temp was 17 deg F. after an hour and a half the outside of the large drum was only 100 deg. I filled the fire pit with fir and got a roaring fire going, the wind was gusting 35 to 60 knots so there was smo...

The day after I asked for help winter came and I've been on the snowplow since. It rained on newyears eve and washed most of the snow away, so I set up my drums to cook some wood. The inner drum was too tall so I couldn't build the fire in the bottom of the large drum. I set up some blocks to hold t...

Good morning, 'haven't been here in a while so with the changed index it took some searching to find the charcoal section. I have a large and small drum burned out ready to go and am anxious to start making charcoal but have a few questions for those that have done this. After loading the small drum...

Squiggle, where will we find your thread on a charcoal kiln?

The plates I welded under the top of my tank did solve the issue of the top grate being hotter than the bottom grate, made no difference to the smoke.

We wanted a bunch of bolts welded to a piece of grader blade so we could bolt it onto an excavator thumb when needed. The professional welder we took it to welded the bolts to a steel rod instead then bolted the rod to the blade through the attachment holes.He did the job well and also informed me w...

You're right about using tools not up to the job, but it's all I have and I can't find the money to get another. I understand DC welders are easier to use. Won't work as generator as it plugs into the wall receptacle, just a big transformer. I got it a couple of years ago to make some repairs on my ...

Holy spatter! The 6011 rod burns down faster than the 7014 and spews spatter all over. Like using flux core wire. Undercuts more too. I turned down the amps and got a nicer bead, didn't like the look of penetration so I raised it just a bit and things worked a lot better.I don't think the little amp...

Thanks for the replies, I checked with Lincoln Electeric, they also think too much heat and suggest I turn down the amperage and make more and smaller beads. The heat could be causing the metal to move creating the cracks. I'm not an experienced welder and I used a mig to make my reverse flow smoker...

Good day, I'm welding a piece of 1/2" X 6" strap five feet long onto another piece of 1/2" metal. It's a lap joint with 3" of the top piece overlaping the bottom piece. I drilled three 1/2" holes and bolted the two pieces together to hold in position untill I have finished welding. I made three weld...

Is checker plate made of different steel than flat plate? I was welding plates onto a steel Bobcat bucket yesterday, using an a/c stick welder with 7014 1/8 rod at 130 amps. Two plates were flat steel, two plates where checker plate. Welding the flat plate I got a nice[for me] fillet weld. Welding t...

Actually the stoker kept the heat at a fairly constant temp. Not quite as steady as my Weber but within 5 degrees swing. as soon as the temp dropped to 224 the fan came on and it stopped as the temp went through 225 It may have continued to rise close to 230 before starting to drop again. The stoker...

The center of the top rack was about 15 degrees hotter than the center of the bottom rack with just one plate. With no plates at all the difference was 30 -50 degrees. With both plates attached I have the same temp, within five degrees, the full length of both racks. I thought the left side of the b...

Update! I posted this in another topic a while back and someone wanted to know how it worked out. I thought I had better post my results. I was getting more heat at the top rack than I was on the bottom rack. I welded a plate under the top of the tank just where the end cap meets the cylinder opposi...

All may not be lost, I cooked a pork loin on Monday that tasted like a creosote log due to too much smoke. I just could not get the thing to burn with just thin blue smoke. I used a chimney of nice hot charcoal to start.I was pre heating the splits on the top of the firebox. I did preheat the smoker...

Well the Alder I have is dry now but it burns with too much smoke. I used a chimney of charcoal and added the Alder on top. Every time I put on a stick I got vast quantities of smoke. The smoker works great with charcoal for fuel and a bit of alder for smoke and flavor but just wont work using Alder...