Quickie UDS for Thanksgiving.

[wutang]

I am out of town for Thanksgiving and threw together a drum to smoke some goodness for the Holiday. I snagged a drum locally when I got here and will just leave it here as a Pre-Christmas present to my brother in law.

Here are a couple pics of the build...

I did as I have done before and flipped the drum over so the removable lid is the bottom. Stainless steel bolts for grate support. I cut out the permanent lid and made it into an ash catchpan.


Made a quick charcoal basket out of a replacement charcoal grate and a couple pieces of expanded metal. Stainless nuts/bolts/washers and made a handle with stainless S-hooks and a plain steel rod.


Intakes are two 3/4 inch threaded pipes that can be capped and one 3/4 inch pipe with a metal faucet to open/close more precisely.


Getting ready to season it. Coated the inside with vegetable oil and loaded a basket with cheap briquettes and a couple chunks of wood.


A pic during the seasoning burn


A couple pics the next morning, nice seasoned color on the inside.




Fired up and running the next morning. Running like a champ.


This thing runs great. I smoked a home-cured ham today and will smoke the turkey in it tomorrow. Maybe a smokefest before I head home this weekend.

[HawgHeaven]

Dang Wu... that's awesome!!

[ThunderDome]

What a great gift. I take it he already had the kettle for the lid?

Did he have a step bit or did you have to buy one to drill the intake holes?

[wutang]

Forgot to mention, it is sitting on caster wheels. And it has bolts to hold 2 cooking grates but only has one grate right now (I told him to look for a cheaper off-brand one on sale)

What a great gift. I take it he already had the kettle for the lid?

Did he have a step bit or did you have to buy one to drill the intake holes?

Actually I had an extra kettle lid that I brought with me since I planned on doing this ahead of time. I also brought my step drill bit with me. Everything else was bought here after picking up the drum.

[DDave]

for the quick build. Your brother in law is pretty lucky.

Question though . . . won't it be hard to determine how far open the valve is with the faucet valve?

Dave

[Broke @ss Cooker]

Looks darn good for a quickie build, better than my long build, once again fine job young man enjoy your stay...!!!

[pyroman175]

I agree for being so cool to your brother in law
P.S. do you need another brother in law I can be bought cheap

[wutang]

Thanks guys.

Question though . . . won't it be hard to determine how far open the valve is with the faucet valve?

Dave

Dave, that was a concern of mine too. The pic doesn't show it but with a black permanent marker we colored in the notch on the faucet handle that is at "12 o'clock" when closed. The faucet gives 2 full turns from completely closed to fully open...so we know as an example that one half turn (180 deg.) is 1/4 open. The opening through the faucet is a little smaller than that of the pipe itself, but so far it is working well.

It will be a little different than running a ball valve, but just take a bit of a learning curve. I think after logging in some hours on it, he will get used to it and be able to know that 1/4 will give him an extra 15 degrees or however it works out.

[DDave]

The pic doesn't show it but with a black permanent marker we colored in the notch on the faucet handle that is at "12 o'clock" when closed. The faucet gives 2 full turns from completely closed to fully open...so we know as an example that one half turn (180 deg.) is 1/4 open.

That's a pretty good system.

Except that one half turn will look the same as one and one half turns by valve position. So you'll have to tell him no drinking allowed while he is using the UDS lest he forget what the valve position is. Just kidding.

Dave

[supervman]

Very cool

[lcruzen]

Nice job!

[rbranstner]

Great last minute build. Your brother in law is going to love you forever now.

[Charcoal Man]

Looks great for a quckie!! J/K, it is a great build. He should be very happy with that nice UDS!!

[sweet_magnolia]