New at smoking and new to the group

[grill kling]

Hi All,

I was surfing around the net, looking for info on smoking and possibly making a smoker and found this site.

Great info, discussions and seems like alot of fun to smoke food !!

I was trying to find the pdf file on building a 55 gallon drum smoker.
big_smokey.pdf Cannot find it.

If I cannot build one may start out with a Brinkman I guess.

My wife looked at a Royal Oak smoker with an attachment fire box. Is it too much cooking area to heat up just getting started? Would I build a fire in the box or charcoal in the box.

Way too much on my mind with this.

Great to be here and thanks for any help.

Jack

 

[ciolli]

Welcome to this great site. You came to the right place!

 

[denver dave]

Welcome aboard. There will be someone to answer all of your questions on this site.

 

[jirodriguez]

Welcome to the site!

As far as what type of smoker to get/build, a lot depends on you. If you are handy with tools (and have the tools) then you can build a Ugly Drum Smoker (UDS), for very little money. Look for posts in the charcoal smoker forum for the how-to's.

The El Chepo Brinkman (ECB) is a great starter smoker as well. You can buy them off of craigslist for under $40, and they need very minimal modafication to turn out some great Que.

The Royal Oak with the offset fire box work well. You usually have to make a few modifications to the store bought offset smokers. Nothing to drastic, just search the forums for Charg-griller or Brinkman Silver for a few common mods. Most people use lump charcoal, with a few fist sized chunks of wood tosed in for your flavor (hickory, mesquitet, oak, pear, apple, ect.). But I have heard of some people using only wood - if you use only wood you will need to pre-burn the wood in a burn barrell for long smokes. I believe there was a realy good post showing a burn barrell that used re-bar, and allowed for a shovel to be used for getting the hot coals from the burn barrell to the smoker.

I have a Char-griller that I love, because it has a lot of room. Take some time and see what you feel comfortable with, and there are lots of very friendly folks who can offer some great advice on all the types of smokers.

 

[bassman]

Welcome to the forum. Glad to have you here. Try this link for more information.


http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...play.php?f=199

 

[irishteabear]

Welcome to SMF. Glad you joined us.

 

[chef jeff tx]

Howdy & welcome to the SMF!!

 

[scarbelly]

Hello Jack and Welcome to SMF - glad to have you with us

 

[mballi3011]

Welcome to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are a bunch of good folks here that would just love to help you with just about anything to do with smoking. You should look up the 5-day E-course it's free and it's very informative and will show oyu some of the basics to BBQ'n
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...play.php?f=127
Here's a link to help you find it. So the next thing you have to do is togo grab something to smoke and if you happen to have a question just post it here and we will ansawer it for you. Good Luck and
Welcome To Your New Addiction.
GO GATORS

 

[treegje]

Welcome to the SMF Jack, We are glad to have you onboard

 

[etcher1]

Welcome to the SMF forum, You came to the right place. Good people and good info.

 

[beer-b-q]

[font=&quot][/font]

[font=&quot]Welcome to SMF, Glad to have you with us. This is the place to learn, lots of good info and helpful friendly Members.[/font]

[font=&quot]For Those of you New to Smoking, be sure to check out Jeff's 5 Day Smoking Basics eCourse.[/font]
[font=&quot]Click Here it's "FREE" ... 5 Day eCourse[/font]

[font=&quot]I Would Highly Suggest Reading these posts on Food Safety by bbally. [/font]

[font=&quot]This thread will tell you basically everything you need to know and the man explaining it is[/font]
[font=&quot]both a ServSafe Instructor and a HACCP Instructor.[/font]
[font=&quot]http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...t=72852&page=2[/font]

[font=&quot]http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=86620[/font]

[font=&quot]Here you can get the 2009 USDA Food Safety Guide from his site.[/font]
[font=&quot]http://prochefblog.com/public_pics/f...09foodcode.pdf[/font]

[font=&quot]How to post Qview to Forum:[/font]

[font=&quot]When you uploading to Photobucket I always use the Large IMG setting, 640 x 480 it is a nice size...[/font]

[font=&quot]Everyone here enjoys seeing the Qview so be sure to post plenty of pics...[/font]

[font=&quot]Large ones that us old people with bad eyes can see.[/font]

[font=&quot][/font]

[font=&quot]For Step By Step Instructions On Posting Qview Check Out This Tutorial[/font]

[font=&quot]http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...ad.php?t=82034[/font]

 

[seenred]

Hello Jack, and welcome to the forums! Glad you're here.

 

[warthog]

Hello Jack,
Welcome to the SMF. Enjoy your stay!

 

[acemakr]

Jack, welcome to the forum.