New and looking for info

[Smokin_Delights]

hi everyone, cheers for having me in the forum, looking for information about designing and building smokers for my catering business.

I'm looking at designing a charcoal gravity fed smoker, was wondering if people could point me in tbe right direction. Pros, cons, and what design sizes that are important that I need to take into consideration.

Cheers

[The Czar]

Welcome aboard!!!


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[Pete Mazz]

Welcome

[Chromeski]

Welcome, smokerplans.net is a great place to start. That is the sister site to this one. There you will find plans to build a few different sizes of gf smoker. I would not personally try to design my own from scratch, too much can go wrong. Since you mentioned a catering business I'm guessing you want full cook for large groups? Check out the plans for the double pan gf that's the large one. There is also a new one that ships with all the pieces in one box (a very large box). Things to consider are your. Budget, your skill level with metal fabrication, and how big of a smoker do you want. Don't be afraid till ask questions.

[Chromeski]

Also check the forum for other guys builds and see if that is something you wanna tackle

[ajfoxy]

I think Chromeski covered all the bases regarding a gravity feed unit. If you are going to do catering I'd definitely opt for the Double Pan.

[Smokin_Delights]

Cheers for the replies, appreciate the friendly welcome. I only decided going with the gravity feed one when I had a look at this site before I was going for a RF offset smoker or a rotisserie.
Definitely plenty to think about, I've came to the right place anyway

[Smokin_Delights]

I had a look on smoker plans, the double pan plans are the ones I thinking about. Waiting on a reply back about dimensions,over all cook space etc.

The pre made package would be ideal but I'm in the UK.

Cheers

[JKalchik]

Ooofff... Okay, shipping will kill my first suggestion.

I really like the double plan GF I built over the last several months. If you go that route, buy the DXF cut plans and have the sheet stock cut on an NC table. I didn't and it's caused me some issues. Make the firebox grate removable. Stuff as much insulation as you can around the firebox.

In a commercial environment, I'd suggest an automatic controller (I'm a big fan of the HeaterMeter, there are others as well.)

[Big T]

Welcome aboard!!

[Chromeski]

Yeah, shipping tho the UK probably isn't optimal. Check some of the build threads in the gf feed sub forum to get an idea of size.

[Smokin_Delights]

Good advice, I was looking through the build threads and noting down the things people said they would do differently. Automatic controller is a good shout as well, make life even easier.

Yeah shipping not an option here.

From a commercial side of things, do you reckon this is the most ideal smoker to make. I know there's a lot of factors like preference, how much time do I want to spend at the fire etc. But for me all I can see is positives, takes up less space, holds heat well (Scotland isn't exactly warm) fairly straight forward design.

Suppose if I change the design I can message and see if people think it would work

Cheers

[JKalchik]

Remember that with a gravity fed cooker that you're going to have a single temperature in the cook chamber. If that's acceptable or a desirable goal, build the GF. I can run mine between 175 and 200 degrees F (80-90 C or so?) Any lower and it tends to lose flame even with forced draft.

OTOH, if you're contemplating warm to hot smoking as well as a cold smoke, a cross flow with a warming chamber might be a better idea.

[Smokin_Delights]

One chamber should be okay, need a batter range of temps than that though, maybe bigger vent letting air in or a larger surface area for the lit coals to sit on?

Having a steady temperature is the key thing, cause Scottish weather is all over the place especially around this time of year so I need something that can handle the cold weather and still maintain a decent temp.

[JKalchik]

FWIW, with a HeaterMeter on it, I ran my double pan last weekend down to 5 degrees F (-15 C?) and maintained +/1 degree F in the cook chamber. It's insulated well enough that wind & rain/snow shouldn't be an issue.

To say it a different way, 175-200 F is the lower limit. It's got very little problem running at 300 degrees F or higher. If you're looking for cold smoking..... you may need to do something a little different.

[Chromeski]

Depending on exactly what you need you may need more than one smoker. What do you plan on cooking? How many people or pounds of meat at once? What are you using now?

[Smokin_Delights]

At the moment it's looking like pork shoulders, pork ribs, beef short ribs etc, all low and slow stuff in that smoker so ideally something that holds temps easily without me standing outside battling the weather as much. I'd love to go full offset smoker like Franklin bbq does but that amount of fire tending takes me off the rest of the prep for the business

[ajfoxy]

I built a double pan for my son in law when he was working at an upmarket retreat/restaurant place in Mount Tambourine, just outside Brisbane. He reckoned it was the best thing ever as he could set it up early morning when he got there. Load up the tucker once up to temp and it just did it's thing with minimal visits to check. It was naturally aspirated i.e. just had a ball valve. He had a digital temp gauge attached that pinged him when it hit target temps. He loved it and tried to get it off the company when he left, but they were not buying into that dream.
Now be aware that it is a heavy thing. You don't want to be pushing this thing around all over the place. So plan where you are going to keep it and make sure it is flat and level and then put the thing on large solid wheels.

As for the "Ikea" style bolt together DP Frank and the boys supply. Do a little homework on freight. If you get your local shipping agent to get you firm prices. I recently got a very large plasma table kit sent from the States via UPS shipping to Brisbane, Australia and it was only around US1100 for the shipping. I would imagine the DP in its box would be way smaller than the extended pallet. So perhaps ask Frank if he would not mind getting a price for UPS shipping (that is via ship, not air freight) to send it to the UK you might be surprised. And if it is for a business you might be able to work some angles with import duties etc as well. The bolt together unit is way less hassle than cutting and doing it the original way. My DP took me around 4 months to build. Aparently the bolt together one takes around 10 hours. So for me about two weeks as I'm slow as cold treacle.

[Smokin_Delights]

Once I get this into its place it won't be moving. Yeah it's worth a shout getting a quote on a delivery etc

[Smokin_Delights]

Depending on exactly what you need you may need more than one smoker. What do you plan on cooking? How many people or pounds of meat at once? What are you using now?

Capacity I'm not 100% sure of yet. At the moment I'm using a cheap landmann offset smoker I bought ages ago, just been using that for family and friends so it's not got the capacity for going commercial

[Frank_Cox]

Once I get this into its place it won't be moving. Yeah it's worth a shout getting a quote on a delivery etc

Yes sir! I ain't scared!
Let's see what we can do. Our FedEx rep said we should have no issues...

[Dirtytires]

As for the "Ikea" style bolt together DP Frank and the boys supply.

Ajfoxy-

Besides that whole fiasco with the monkey a while back, finding Franks new smoker at IKEA has got to be the funniest thing on the boards in a long time!

[Smokin_Delights]

Once I get this into its place it won't be moving. Yeah it's worth a shout getting a quote on a delivery etc

Yes sir! I ain't scared!
Let's see what we can do. Our FedEx rep said we should have no issues...

Let's get a quote then, see what we're looking at, I'll buy the plans as well and check the sizes or everything

[ajfoxy]

DT... probably "flat-pack" would be a more apt description. But glad to provide some light relief to the day.

[The Czar]

Once I get this into its place it won't be moving. Yeah it's worth a shout getting a quote on a delivery etc [emoji108]

Yes sir! I ain't scared!
Let's see what we can do. Our FedEx rep said we should have no issues...

Let's get a quote then, see what we're looking at, I'll buy the plans as well and check the sizes or everything [emoji108]

Did you PM Frank to ask about shipping yet?


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