- Mar 7, 2010
- 4
- 10
Good morning everyone. Nice site you have here.
I am not totally new to smoking meat but I am looking to pick up some new skills. My wife and I do spend a lot of time smoking with our old Weber Kettle. We have cooked every Thanksgiving Turkey on it since we were dating. We usually run that little guy at least once or twice a week. The biggest problem with the Weber is that there really isn't much room there. When you are cooking indirect with that you only really have about 1/3rd of the grille.
For a while I have been thinking about building a smoker with more capacity. I also work Maintenance at a local Hospital and I have kept my eye out for something that would be a good start. The other day I drug home an old hot plate cart that still works great and I am going to give it a shot. We don't need the hot carts at the hospital anymore because we are doing room service now instead of meal time, so we had a few of these carts that were headed for the dump.
It is electric like I said and has an adjustable thermostat and timer with the heater on the bottom. It has a thermometer on the front that has been calibrated and it has a little stainless vent already. It is all stainless steel inside and out, fully welded and very high quality. It is insulated with some kind of foam board about an inch thick between the layers of SS. It has adjustable shelves to hold sheet pans. There is a little water pan at the bottom to keep things humid. There is a really high quality door seal like a fridge. It looks to me like it was made to be a smoker. It seems to be able to hold pretty much any temp I want between zero and 300f and it will hold it dead steady.
I have a couple sheets of 3/4 x 13 raised expanded steel I am going to put a couple of shelves in it and a sheet pan full of water near the bottom. I am going to fill that little water pan with the wood chips. If that works I am going to make a way to refill the chips without opening the door. I will probably put another sheet pan below the meat I am cooking, maybe put the meat near the center. Does that sound alright? Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to better smoke meat in this thing? We have some cheap country style ribs I think I am going to do for a test run this morning.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
I am not totally new to smoking meat but I am looking to pick up some new skills. My wife and I do spend a lot of time smoking with our old Weber Kettle. We have cooked every Thanksgiving Turkey on it since we were dating. We usually run that little guy at least once or twice a week. The biggest problem with the Weber is that there really isn't much room there. When you are cooking indirect with that you only really have about 1/3rd of the grille.
For a while I have been thinking about building a smoker with more capacity. I also work Maintenance at a local Hospital and I have kept my eye out for something that would be a good start. The other day I drug home an old hot plate cart that still works great and I am going to give it a shot. We don't need the hot carts at the hospital anymore because we are doing room service now instead of meal time, so we had a few of these carts that were headed for the dump.
It is electric like I said and has an adjustable thermostat and timer with the heater on the bottom. It has a thermometer on the front that has been calibrated and it has a little stainless vent already. It is all stainless steel inside and out, fully welded and very high quality. It is insulated with some kind of foam board about an inch thick between the layers of SS. It has adjustable shelves to hold sheet pans. There is a little water pan at the bottom to keep things humid. There is a really high quality door seal like a fridge. It looks to me like it was made to be a smoker. It seems to be able to hold pretty much any temp I want between zero and 300f and it will hold it dead steady.
I have a couple sheets of 3/4 x 13 raised expanded steel I am going to put a couple of shelves in it and a sheet pan full of water near the bottom. I am going to fill that little water pan with the wood chips. If that works I am going to make a way to refill the chips without opening the door. I will probably put another sheet pan below the meat I am cooking, maybe put the meat near the center. Does that sound alright? Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to better smoke meat in this thing? We have some cheap country style ribs I think I am going to do for a test run this morning.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.