First offset build! Have some questions.

[dacolson]

Agree on the hose out and drain. I hit it with the old Texas torch really good after the wash out to vaporize anything left.


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[dacolson]

And your spot on with Pam and a good couple hours at 350ish to get a good season on. I keep a pile of brisket trimmings to throw on during the seasoning as well.


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[thejm]

Hey guys, I have another build update and this one is a good one. I thought it was about time to give the smoker some new shoes!

Now that the thermometers are on and I am nearing the end of the build, it was time to fab a more permanent frame for it. As mentioned in my last post, I purposely didn’t do this till the very end so that I could keep leveling it as I moved it around my uneven garage floor. By keeping it on the temporary stands, I could add shims to one leg or another to keep it level which enabled me to use an I-beam level to make my cuts rather than having to remember to compensate for the unlevelness of said garage floor every time.

By my calculations, my smoker is about 1,400 pounds so I asked my brother and dad to help me. I started by building the rectangular frame using that 3 point method mentioned in my previous posts. I wanted it to be skookum so I chose 2” square tubing, 1/4” wall for the frame and legs. I bought six 550 pound casters at Northern Tool to hold the weight.

For those wondering, the frame is as wide as the CC, 30” outside and the legs are at a 10 degree angle inward and is quite stable with the smoker on it. I didn’t want it so wide that I would kick it when adding meat to the smoker.

We used a 6 by 6 and 2 floor jacks to hold the CC end of the smoker long enough to get it mounted to the new frame. We were going to use a 4 by 4 but I was worried that it wouldn’t hold up to the ~750 pounds that it would be subject to. We also screwed a couple pieces of scrap wood to the 6 by 6 on either side of the CC to prevent it from rolling side to side. With a third jack on the firebox end, we raised the entire smoker off of the temporary supports and removed them.

At this point I looked at it and said “Well, at least my welds are holding!” (Notice that there is no support near the throat area.)

Pictured is my brother not knowing I'm taking a picture:

Then we rolled the frame under the smoker and used a framer’s square to make sure it was centered under the CC. We put the long end of the framers square up against the CC and made sure the short end was flat against the crossmembers of the frame. This made sure that the edge of the CC was directly above the edge of the cart.

Next I used a little math to determine that the legs need to be cut at a 35 degree angle on the side they will meet the CC on. We held the legs up against the CC and marked a line to cut it to meet the frame. We repeated this with all 6 legs, tacked them and welded them on fully.

Really happy with how it came out!

Next step is to clean it out and add a few finishing touches!

Before:

After:

[Big T]

[Pete Mazz]

[dacolson]

Turned out great. Nice work

[Dirtytires]

Definitely getting close to fire-up time!

[SheffSmoker]

Looks great.

[thejm]

Thanks all!

Definitely getting close to fire-up time!

It is and im getting really excited for the first burn and the first real cook!

I have a question for those of you experienced in smoking. I just bought some really good, seasoned 20%-25% moisture content wood. It was dry, no bugs, split, optimal for smoking.

Like an dumb dumb, I left it in the back of my truck covered for a few days sealed off from the elements. I just opened the bed to see the wood and saw a little bit of mold start to grow on it.

As I said above, when I bought it, it was dry and good to use. No growth at that time and I even verified the moisture with my wood moisture meter. The mold came from me letting it sit for several days without air movement.

I assume this is still good to use to break in my smoker and to smoke with? I am sure it will be fine but wanted to ask here first. Dont want to do anything to negatively impact the flavor of the smoker.

I took a few pics of one of the worst pieces with the mold growing on the end but no where else and a regular piece with practically none on it at all for comparrison

Thoughts?

Here is an Imgur link to some more high definition photos.

https://imgur.com/gallery/3JeLGQL

[Pete Mazz]

Wouldn't bother me.

[Dirtytires]

Ditto!

Get it stacked properly as soon as you can but no reason you can’t use it.

Tho size is hard to tell from the pictures, it looks like those pieces need split at least once more. Goal for me is about diameter of a soda can.

[dacolson]

500 gallon and up can take wood like that but you'll end up either way too hot or just smoldering wood splits much bigger than 3" diameter max.
On the mold - it's always on the wood. In the dark with no air circulation it will grow. get it in the open and the mold will dry out. Fire will kill it ... I'd double check that moisture content. I'd be concerned it's high since it molded up so quickly. 20-25% is good for smoking, but not much higher than that. You'll spend too much time heating water in the wood for it to come up to temp = bitter white/grey smoke.

[thejm]

Wouldn't bother me.

Ditto!

Get it stacked properly as soon as you can but no reason you can’t use it.

Thanks! I actually built a firewood rack over the weekend to store all of it on. It holds a face cord and is 4' by 8' by 14". Turned out really nice. Material is 1.5" square tubing, 1/8" wall.

Thats all blackjack and it smells great.

Ill take some better pictures of the size of the splits and post them tonight to get y'alls thoughts. Im sure ill learn with time too.

I am getting so pumped for my first cook!!

[dacolson]

No doubt! Wood racks look great. Do you have plans for a cover? A little cedar shake would look sweet on that.

[thejm]

No doubt! Wood racks look great. Do you have plans for a cover? A little cedar shake would look sweet on that.

I actually had planned on getting a full cover for the rack but I like the idea of the roof. That obviously wouldn't cover the sides though. Would I need something to also cover those so the wood doesn't over dry?

Also took some pictures of the wood I bought. Here are some of the biggest pieces. Are these good sizes for my 250 gallon smoker or should I split these once?

[dacolson]

Moisture content stored outside shouldn’t get too much below 20%. Even if you’re below 15%, you can always put a pan of water in the CC to add a bit of moisture. If you read much about it, the thought is that moisture levels too low will dry out your meat. Not sure if I believe it.

Dirtytires’ comment on the diameter of a pop can is pretty good. Some of those in your pics would be small if split. I keep a hatchet by the FB and just trim some down as I go depending on how I feel the pit is running. I don’t think you’ll be in too much trouble with any of that. Best thing you can do is to do some test burns and see how they do.


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[shearman23]

Awesome build on this thing. Can't wait to see the first meat off of it.

Wish I would have seen this earlier, but I just joined the forum.

You guys were talking about the stack and its airflow and restrictions and having a stack that folds. I follow a lot of builders on Instagram and have watched a lot of their videos and stuff. Moberg Smokers is one of the bigger smoker builders in the country for Texas-style smokers and they use large pipe elbows to exhaust with a reducer. It's pretty cool.



Here is a link to a video on one:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/Lt2FhchOdcY[/youtube]

The style you ended up with is more like Mill Scale Metalworks out of Lockhart, TX which were the 2 brothers that built all of the pits at Franklin's BBQ with Aaron Franklin when he would go to their shop. They designed it that way because they thought the air flow with be uninterrupted exiting the chamber and pull more evenly across the grate. They normally have a stack that is slightly bigger than the height of the exit from the CC.



I'm sure if you had a big a$$ 12" elbow that reduced to 8-10" it would flow really well too lol.

Only thing I was wondering is; Does your wrist hit the bottom of your lid when you lift it all of the way up? That's been known to burn people... just saw that and wondered. You can see how the handle drops down a ways in the picture above on the Mill Scale pit. Either way, great stuff. I love to see when people take authentic pride in something they do, they are almost always more successful in life and that's a great asset.

[Dirtytires]

My wood racks are similar to yours. I built a simple frame out of 0.5 x1 tubing and then screwed a simple piece of corrugated metal on top. The two ends simply set onto the uprights of the rack. Mine sits next to a block wall but the other 3 sides are open. Keep in mind I’m in the Arizona desert and we get little rain here. When it does, my wood is still usable tho.

Probably built my racks a good 10 years ago and it’s worked out just fine over the years.

[thejm]

Awesome build on this thing. Can't wait to see the first meat off of it.

Wish I would have seen this earlier, but I just joined the forum.

You guys were talking about the stack and its airflow and restrictions and having a stack that folds. I follow a lot of builders on Instagram and have watched a lot of their videos and stuff. Moberg Smokers is one of the bigger smoker builders in the country for Texas-style smokers and they use large pipe elbows to exhaust with a reducer. It's pretty cool.



Here is a link to a video on one:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/Lt2FhchOdcY[/youtube]

The style you ended up with is more like Mill Scale Metalworks out of Lockhart, TX which were the 2 brothers that built all of the pits at Franklin's BBQ with Aaron Franklin when he would go to their shop. They designed it that way because they thought the air flow with be uninterrupted exiting the chamber and pull more evenly across the grate. They normally have a stack that is slightly bigger than the height of the exit from the CC.

Hey thanks for the compliments and nice observations. I have tried to design the smoker from the ground up to produce the best quality Central Texas style BBQ possible. Because of that, I modeled it after Franklin's restaurant smokers. I know there are several great BBQ joints around the country but he seems to be the best and most consistent out of all of them. I follow several BBQ channels (such as Mad Scientist BBQ) that do BBQ for a living and every one that I have seen that has gone to Franklins says that its the best brisket they've ever had. That speaks volumes to me. Can't wait to see how well the meat turns out on mine!

Regarding the stack, my stack was originally designed as a 6" sch. 40 stack but I changed to an 8" sch. 40 stack midway through the design. The depth of the opening is 6" so I am following the advice in your last sentence there. Also I did some math and determined that the stack itself is the restriction on smoke exiting the CC, not the collection area. Said another way, the area which the smoke has to travel through to get to the stack is always greater than the stack area.

Another note is that, though I don't have experience to back this up, I think you and Franklin are correct in their thinking about this design pulling smoke more evenly across the width of the smoker. I also follow FatStack Smokers online and they use the same stack design.

Only thing I was wondering is; Does your wrist hit the bottom of your lid when you lift it all of the way up? That's been known to burn people... just saw that and wondered. You can see how the handle drops down a ways in the picture above on the Mill Scale pit. Either way, great stuff. I love to see when people take authentic pride in something they do, they are almost always more successful in life and that's a great asset.

Good Point. I am a little worried about that and will play it by ear. It won't be the end of the world to move the handles down a bit if necessary. I do plan on wearing heat gloves most of the time when handling the meat anyway so we'll see how big of a deal this is if at all.

[thejm]

Awesome build on this thing. Can't wait to see the first meat off of it.

The style you ended up with is more like Mill Scale Metalworks out of Lockhart, TX which were the 2 brothers that built all of the pits at Franklin's BBQ with Aaron Franklin when he would go to their shop. They designed it that way because they thought the air flow with be uninterrupted exiting the chamber and pull more evenly across the grate. They normally have a stack that is slightly bigger than the height of the exit from the CC.

Also its funny you mention Mill Scale Metalworks. I did'nt know they were connected with Franklin but it makes sense. This was my iPhone wallpaper for a while, another Mill Scale smoker, this time a 500 gallon one.

[thejm]

So I did some finishing work on the smoker this weekend. After 4 months, its finally done and ready for the first burn!

Firebox hole
The first thing I did after putting the smoker on the frame was to drill a 1/4” hole in the bottom, outside wall of the firebox to relieve any pressure that builds up and let any moisture out of the insulated cavity. You can see the hole on the bottom of the picture here.

Grinding and Clear Coat
Next step was to do a little cosmetic grinding. This felt good to make everything look finished and shiny after all the hard work I’ve put in.

I really like the way the smoker looks right now and want to avoid painting it but I also don’t want it to turn into a rust bucket. In an attempt to prevent the rust, I bought some 2000 degree high heat clear coat for metal. I put a coat on all exposed metal that isn’t painted. I am hoping for the best and will let you know how this holds up. I should note that I didn’t put any on the interior parts of the smoker or firebox.

Here is a link to what I bought: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1

Cleaning
I followed the advice of several of you here and took a hose and some dawn soap to the inside of the CC and firebox. I actually used a few of my car washing brushes to scrub the inside. Basically my method was to apply soap and rinse until the soap stopped turning rust color. I also scrubbed out the inside of the stack. I had the smoker tilted so that the water drained out of the grease drain hole which worked well. After an hour or 2, it was clean and good to go. I also made sure to rinse it out thoroughly to get any remnant soap out of there.

Rub-a-dub-dub

Not pictured but I also scrubbed the grates.

Firebox Drain Hole

While cleaning, one issue that I found was that water kept building up in the firebox. Two thoughts occurred to me when that happened. 1. Man I hope my welds don’t have peep holes in them and let water from getting in the insulated cavity even though I put in the hole I described above to let any moisture out. 2. I should put in a drain hole that can be plugged.

This was fairly simple. I ground the weld down with my Dremel and used a tapping bit to drill and tap a 3/8” hole for a bolt to threat into. This will come in handy when washing grease out of the smoker after a long cook.

[dacolson]

Is the plug going through your insulation? How will you avoid water from getting into your insulation? I know you cut a hole in the bottom, just seems like you’re increasing the risk of mold buildup inside the walls.


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[tinspark]

You might be able to use a short nipple and add a cap at the end:
Drill a hole through both skins and weld the nipple inside of the FB and outside of the second insulated skin, and attach a cap on it..... Done.....
You may want to go bigger so that it doesn't plug up

[thejm]

Is the plug going through your insulation? How will you avoid water from getting into your insulation? I know you cut a hole in the bottom, just seems like you’re increasing the risk of mold buildup inside the walls.


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So the end cap isn’t insulated so there’s just one layer there. Only the sides of the firebox are insulated. That hole goes through where the end cap and the inner wall meet.

When I drilled that hole I looked and could not find the seam between the two but it might be worth welding some sort of sleeve in there to make sure no water gets in.

[thejm]

You might be able to use a short nipple and add a cap at the end:
Drill a hole through both skins and weld the nipple inside of the FB and outside of the second insulated skin, and attach a cap on it..... Done.....
You may want to go bigger so that it doesn't plug up

I might go bigger, good point. What do you mean by the nipple? Can you post a pic?

Edit: After re-reading it are you talking about a short segment of pipe welded to the firebox with a nipple slid on there?