Homemade grill to smoker conversion question(s)

[revolutionthirty]

I am brand new to all this(never smoked anything!) but recently acquired a homemade grill and want to convert it to a smoker. It is basically a horizontal drum with a smoke stack in the top center. I know I need to add a firebox. How big should it be in relation to the drum(half, two-thirds?) I also know I will need to add some dampers. How many and where should they be? Should I move the smoke stack, get rid of it, or leave it alone? Should the firebox be placed on one of the ends or in the front or back or does it matter? If I am missing anything else I need you can let me know about that also!

Please excuse my ignorance, I know I am asking a lot, but any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance,

Brian

 

[pineywoods]

Brian if you can post some pics so we can see what you have to work with. Also what size is the drum?

 

[helljack6]

Sounds almost like he's got the makings of a nice double barrel big betty version.

IF, and I do stress IF, it were me wanting to turn it into a smoker, i'd get a second drum and put it behind and below where the cooking drum is, connect the two with one or two 6 inch diameter ducts equidistant apart so that the heat come up from the bottom and heats the whole chamber uniformly. The fact that the exhaust is probably TDC (top dead center) will further help uniform heating. Again, this assumes it was MY rig, I have a preference to heat source being on the bottom vs offset right or offset left.

Wouldn't need baffles, just a way to regulate the air intake from the fire below, run it with the exhaust full wide open. In this set up you could literally use either briqs, lump or straight hardwood as your source.

Just my $.02 worth of nothing.

 

[revolutionthirty]

I have attatched a couple of pics of the cooker I was referring to.

Thanks again for any input,
Brian

 

[pineywoods]

Judging by the pics I think I'd add a fire box about the size of a 30 or 40 lb LP cylinder to one end and move the stack to the other end but of course thats just my opinion

 

[bigsteve]

You can do hogs in that baby!