500 gallon smoker with 150 gallon cooker

[Tom_Heath]

Nice rig...... The only thing that would look better is if it had smoke coming out of it.

[motoridr09]

Hey guys. I haven't posted in a while. I've smoked with this thing twice once with a small wild hog on it (sorry no action pics) and so far its worked great. However I have a big cook for the church coming up and were going to be doing 35 pork butts on it. Were wanting to start pulling meat around 3pm sunday. If I get the fire going at 3am (it takes about an hour to get this thing warmed up good) and get the meat on at 4am do you think Ill be good? I could really use yalls advice since I've never done a cook this big before. Thanks.

[Rodcrafter]

That amount of meat will act like an heat sink. It will draw your temp down for a bit. If there is any problem getting the temp to run where you want it consider more time for that. If you wrap the butts at about 155* it won't stall in the cooking process. This will help predict your cooking time.

[motoridr09]

I'm thinking about heating the smoker up to 300-350 so when everything gets put on it will pull it down to the right temp. Will that work? Also am I pushing the time too close or should I be alright?

[Big T]

I always over shoot my cooking temp by about 75 degrees or so if I'm putting a lot of meat on at the same time, it definitely helps the temp from bottoming out when you first load it. I'm not sure what size butts you're cooking but it seems like you'll be cutting it close to me. Like RC said above, I would wrap them to help avoid the stall. If they do finish early you can wrap them in a towel and throw them in an ice chest(no ice) and they will stay hot for a long time.

[Pete Mazz]

If it's all for pulled pork you could make it ahead of time, pull it, sauce it and just reheat. No one would ever taste the difference and you could reheat in the smoker for "presentation".

[motoridr09]

Yeah its all for pulled pork but some of the guys were complaining that it wouldn't taste as fresh so they want me cook it the day of. I'm thinking I'm going to shoot for a 275 cooking temp, wrapping them in foil after 4 hours, and checking the internal temp at 12 to see if I need to kick up the heat. Good plan??? Should I get the fire going at 2 and get meat on at 3 just to give me more cook time?

[Pete Mazz]

If you're going to wrap all those you should be fine. Don't forget that you'll lose quite a bit of heat by the time you get all those wrapped. Once wrapped, you can go as high as 350 if things need to be sped up.

Personally, I think it tends to taste better the next day.

[motoridr09]

Alright thanks. Does wrapping them really help cook faster?

[Pete Mazz]

Absolutely. On some cuts it'll knock 4 hours off a cook.

[motoridr09]

Dang I didn't know it made that big of a difference. That makes me feel more confident about the time frame. Thanks guys for the info. I'll try to remember to take some pictures and let yall know how it goes.

[motoridr09]

Alright guys the cook went great but wife decided to have a kid monday morning so I didn't have a chance to post until now. We ended up having close to 700 people show up for this event and I didn't hear any complaints so I think it went good. I got the fire started at 2:30 and we had all of the meat off the smoker at 1 o'clock. This cook actually filled the smoker up all the way, we could not get another butt on there if we wanted to without stacking them. The men's club now want to use the smoker for all their cooks now and I have a couple guys wanting me to make them smokers now. I appreciate all of the help and advice you guys have given me. I threw in some pictures, meant to take more but it didn't happen, sorry.

[forty_creek]

Nothing like a successful cook! And cooking for 700 folks WOW! Major undertaking! Congrats
You prolly have it somewhere on the thread, I'm curious of the dimensions of your cooking grates and how many butts fit per?


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[motoridr09]

Theres about a 3.5 foot by 3 foot grate and a 3 foot by 3 foot grate in the big door. The smaller door has a 2 foot by 2 foot, a 2 foot by 3 foot and a 2 foot by 3.5 foot grate in it. These are estimations not exact.. don't remember exact measurements. We had 36 pork butts on there not using the 2 foot by 2 foot rack in the smaller door. Each weighing 8-11 pounds a piece. I'm thinking about selling this one and making another one. I have a guy interested at $6500. Is this too low or too high? Just wondering what y'all think.

[Rodcrafter]

Nice work MR. You look pretty proud of yourself too. And you should that was a lot of work.

[Smokydokey]

Very nice job moto, but did you say you just had a new baby? If I read that right, congrats Bud! Hope everyone is well.

[motoridr09]

I appreciate all of the compliments guys. Yeah we had a girl. Our first kid was a boy so I'm already teaching him what a throat punch is so he can take care of her boyfriends if needed... Haha. But thanks everyone's doing good.

[Tom_Heath]

Just saying. Tandem axel cookers are just Bad Ass looking. Your build is awesome.


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[Pennywise]

Moto it looks awesome brother! I have a few questions for ya...

1) How does a normal pickup do hauling it? We did the same thing it looks like cutting off the back end to flush the FB, so Im curious to see if you've had it weighed yet.

2) do you remember your FB dimentions? Again I can only assume they're similar....also what size pipe did you go with?

3) Why did you decide to go with a passenger side FB door instead of a rear facing one? It looks good, just curious for your reason.

And lastly...6500 sounds like a good price, but I bet you could get 7k if you were serious about selling and building another. Of course with a second kid at home, and the price of diapers and formula....your wife will probably spend that money before you could put it back into the next project...LOL

[motoridr09]

Ive only taken it up to 55 mph but my truck did fine and it just has the 4.8. I bet it would struggle cruising 75 down the highway but it does towing anything. I havent weighed it. I can measure the firebox when i get back home for you. I think its 6 inch pipe.. there honstly wasent much reason behind the firebox door placement but i will say my next one will be rear facing so i can move the smoker more forward on the trailer for more tongue weight. I have it put on craigslist for 7000 to see if theres any bites on it right now. If you have anymore questions just ask. Ill be happy to try to help you.

[Pennywise]

Yeah I'd be curious about the weight. I plan on going by a truck scale down here once mines finished. I was thinking of doing 8" pipe so I could keep it shorter, but your's doesnt seem TOO tall. Did you make it removable? My concern is being able to garage it, even though I don't really have a garage at the moment...LOL

Lastly, did you paint it or have it done? It looks good...curious what it cost if you had it done.

[motoridr09]

My stack is not removable and it will not fit into a normal garage door. If you want it to, go 8 inch. I sandblasted and painted it myself. It used about a gallon and a half of paint at 15 dollars a quart and I went through 9 100 pound bags of sand... still dont know what I owe my father-in-law for that. As for getting it painted for you I bet that really depends on where your located and who does it.

[Pennywise]

Right on. I kinda planned on painting it myself, but the proffessional look may win out in the end as I suck as a painter.

[motoridr09]

If you have access to an air compressor and a paint gun go ahead and paint it yourself if you want to. That is the first thing I have ever painted like that and I was surprised at how well it turned out. I think that satin black paint is forgiving as long as you let first coat flash and you lay down the paint evenly. But the sandblasting part does suck haha.