Make shift smoker build...Need help

[tmoney]

Hi guys,

I have a chargriller duo with the side fire box and that is where i do my smoking when i am home.  I wanted to do some pork butts for Memorial Day Weekend, but my smoker is too bulky to transfer, so we built one out of a new garbage can.  The meat turned out really well, but the design clearly has some flaws. 

The grill grate in out fire box melted.  that caused the fire to collapse and no air to pass through.  We where able to put a 2nd grate in, but in the future i am thinking a cast iron grate for that will be needed. 

One of the big problems we had was getting the air to flow from the fire box to the smoke chamber.  We had to set a fan up to blow in the fire box vents.  We also had to open the lid of the smoke chamber slightly to get good air flow.  I am thinking bigger air vents in the fire box, and maybe a chiminey stack with a valve on top of the smoke chamber will help with air flow.

Another thing i thought about was building a stand so that the smoking chamber sits higher than the fire box so that the heat and smoke will flow up and into the chamber, not sure if this will make a huge difference or not. 

Any tips and advice you guys have on making this design a little better would be great!!!!!

BBQ 2.jpg

• tmoney
• May 28, 2013

Chamber is a 33 gallon garbage can.  Fire box is a 10 gallon can.

Tmoney

 

[tyler523]

Hey Tmoney 

 First off that,s a nice rig glad to hear the meat came out even tho you had some problems along the way. Now the criticism part hopefully all constructive criticism tho when the fire grate was working in place was it set above the air tube to the chamber if so than your air is defiantly gonna have a hard time finding its way through the fire into the chamber if it has to go back though the fire by which i mean the air should me able to come in low pass through the fire and then rise into the chamber. The other thing I am concerned about and i may be wrong but the fire box looks like its galvanized steel which my understanding was always that is a bad choice for a burning container since galvanized coatings emit seriously bad stuff when exposed to extreme heat. All and all ya gotta start some where and ya did there are some great articles on this site and a lot of great people to help you make something down right professional.

Tyler