Water tank smoker

[cleglue]

This may give you some idea's. It is a big homemade (WSM) Weber Smokey Mountain.

Here is the picture.

http://www.randyq.addr.com/friends/mike ... _force.htm

Here are the intructions.

http://www.randyq.addr.com/friends/mike ... cation.htm

Just more information.

http://www.randyq.addr.com/index.html

 

[Forkin Pork]

Ok thanks Cleglue & Bigwheel for clearifying on the WSM and ECB and the AKA's.
Also, the instructions were very helpful, now I know how to do my firepit or ring area.
Today I got the door fabricated and welded on and I didn't have to buy one beer.....yet!

 

[cleglue]

Keep us posted on the progress.

 

[Forkin Pork]

I'll post a picture soon!

Was wondering if a 4 inch baffled intake and a 4 inch x 4 inch high baffled flue is good enough?

Trying to keep this as air tight as possible, with no open bottom like those small vertical mods. (Brinkman, Weber, or ECB's)

 

[cleglue]

You should have an air intake on the bottom and an exhaust on the top. The WSM is the best vertical smoker that I have seen. It has three intake vents on the bottom that can be closed off and one vent on the top that can also be closed off. The first and only Brinkman I had has an open bottom which doesn't allow you to regulate the temperature (I never mastered that smoker).

Make the vents where you can open and close it. 4 inches sounds fine but make it to open and close between 0" to 4". This is just may opinion. Others may have more insight.

 

[bigwheel]

Think the cone shaped bottom might be a bit problematical. Need some creative way to be able to clean it out and that cone would be a biotch. Thinking maybe the best strategy might be to cut off the bottom cone and replace it with flat steel plate close to where it begins to narrow..say maybe a foot from the bottom..maybe a bit less. You could still maintain a little curvature on the bottom sides but not a whole lot. In the bottom plate you need a hole about the size of a coffee cup directly in the center to serve as a grease drain which could also double as an adjustable air intake directly under the fire. Have a pivoting cover over the intake hole with an ajustment arm which protrudes from under the bottom of the pit so you can control the size of the gap. That should be all the air intake you need and if the pit it otherwise air tight you could put out the fire simply by closing off the hole and blocking off the exhaust. You also need to be thinking about the door arrangement. You could build it with either one big door which would span the entire front...or you could make a large meat tending door on about the top 3/4 of the front..and a smaller fire tending/clean out door near the bottom. My pit is of the two door configuration and it comes in handy to be able to tend the fire w/o opening the big door. Conserves heat etc. Course with an upright with outward opening doors you dont lose near as much heat when you do open the door...as opposed to say an offset with upward opening doors. Stack should be a simple arrangement..but it do need an adjustable cover over the top. I would leave the top cone shape as is. Just a few things to ponder.

bigwheel

 

[Forkin Pork]

Thanks BW, everything you said re-enforces some of the same things that pass through my mind and tells me I on the right track for a somewhat newbee.
If you think the one center grease "drain" is enough for an air vent as well, do you think my 4 inch pipe is the right size?

 

[Forkin Pork]

Ok ... did some work to the smoker today.
Your not going to believe what I did!
I cut open a bit of the bottom and mounted an old propane set up that I had from one of my early models and made a lazy boy out of it.
I just could'nt help myself.
I may be smokin this weekend. Sorry! :roll:

 

[bigwheel]

Sounds good to me.

bigwheel

 

[cleglue]

It sounds like you created an Afterburner...

http://www.gassmoker.com/v-burner.htm

 

[bigwheel]

Now thats cute.

bigwheel

 

[Forkin Pork]

Yah, something like an after burner. I fired it up just to see how it acts and was very pleased, it holds temps nice an steady.
Still got a bit more work but she'll be smokin soon enough.

Lookin around at different trailer pits, that's another reason I made the vertical a lazy boy smoker.
Really startin to like the Diamond Plate Fat 50 model, now where's my W2 so I can file and get my money?

 

[bigwheel]

I have a januine Lazy Q propane burner from Big Jim Whitten down in Floriddy. It's basically a high pressure turkey fryer burner which sits on some stubby legs and has a flexible copper tube about a foot long which attaches to the burner as opposed to the usual rubber/neoprene hose. Anytime I want to cook lazy Q on my big pit aka..Fred I just sit it in the bottom of the upright and the copper tube juts out of the pit through the clean out door so you dont have to worry about burning up the hose. Leaving the clean out door standing slightly open also makes sure the burner gets enough air. Problemo I got with it is I dont have a real effective block twixt the upright and the horizontal so I waste a lot of btu's from heat migrating into the horizontal where it aint needed. I got a coupla big sheet pans sitting up there on end but a lot of heat still gets around em. Gonna have me a propa barrier made up one of these days if I ever get a round toit On a round pit you shouldnt have that problem. Be sure you give that burner plenty of air in the immediate vicinity of the flame. Otherwise it whoosh at you and burn off your eyebrows when you open the door. Had a chum who made a Lazy Q which pulled that trick on him cuz it wasn't getting enough air until he open the door then all of sudden it got how much it needed.

bigwheel

 

[Forkin Pork]

I hear ya on the whoooooshin BW.
Air in take has been on my mind even though she burns great.