# Quick question please.



## caustic (Jun 29, 2010)

I am in the process of building my own smoker. Figured I'd give it a whirl after a buddy of mine cooked up some food on his Backwoods Chubby.

My question is:

Do I need to worry about any sort of coating on the interior of the smoker? High temp paint or any other type of coating? I was just going to leave it raw and sheet the outside and paint the outside of it for looks.

Thanks in advance!


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## daddyzaring (Jun 29, 2010)

Just coat it with cooking oil and season it.


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## smokingd (Jun 29, 2010)

Caustic said:


> I am in the process of building my own smoker. Figured I'd give it a whirl after a buddy of mine cooked up some food on his Backwoods Chubby.
> 
> My question is:
> 
> ...


What kinda smoker are you building?  You will get better input the more info you give us to reply to.  And swing by roll call give us a chance to welcome you to your new addiction


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## matts (Jun 29, 2010)

Are you talking about a coating that is already on the inside or what to put on the inside.  If it has paint or something already on the inside, then you should get rid of that coating.  If it is raw metal then coat with cooking oil like mentioned above and bake it on.


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## corn cob (Jun 29, 2010)

daddyzaring said:


> Just coat it with cooking oil and season it.


What he said ~~


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## mballi3011 (Jun 29, 2010)

I would just season it and smoke on my friend. Now can you swing into Roll Call for us now.


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## caustic (Jun 29, 2010)

Thx all for the help and replies.

I am mocking a Backwoods Chubby and am just about finished with the build. This is my first smoker. A friend of mine got me in to it so I tested some cooks on my Weber kettle. I made a few modifications to the Weber and things went very well (as well as one could hope for with a kettle anyhow). Quality smokers are pretty expensive so I figured I'd save myself some cash 8)

I will just season the inside and then paint the outside. It's what I figured but with all the knowledge available here I figured I'd ask to make sure. The picture below is 1 day behind the progress I made today. Right now all that's left are the doors, coal tray and rack slides. Then of course sheeting the outside.


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## tom37 (Jun 29, 2010)

Looking good so far. Are you insulating it or just going to sheet the outside?


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## caustic (Jun 29, 2010)

Well... I was a bit confused about insulating the smoker. As far as how to do it efficiently without adding a ton of weight to it due to multiple layers of steel enclosing the insulation. I'm trying to stick around the 115 lb mark like the Chubby is and I'm getting close to 100 lbs if I were to guess so far. What I have left is the coal pan, firebox vents, rack guides, racks and then sheeting the outside. I used 10ga steel for the cooking compartment and the bottom sheet that holds the coal tray. 2x1 tubing on the face and then 1x1 tubing for the rest of it. I don't know if that was overkill or not. I used my best judgement in picking the materials. Also my budget had a little to do with the selection of materials.

As far as insulating the smoker:

I would assume that the insulation needs to be enclosed between sheeting and seperated from both the fire box and the cooking box?

I would also assume that the insulation would be "sandwiched" by steel and mounted on the outside of the frame I have.

One solution I can come up with is to form 2 end caps 1/2 inch deep. 1 of the caps would be 1/8th inch smaller so that one fits inside the other and put insulation between them and then install this sort of cap to each side of the smoker.

The other is taking 1 end cap, 1/2inch deep and mounting it pan side out, filling with insulation, and then sheeting the outside. Either way it's adding 2 layers of sheeting to the smoker.

Are either of these ideas the right way?

Also does insulation (with the way I'm doing this build) matter a lot?

I used to be a sheet metal worker and I have access to all the tools needed to do whatever but I was just confused since I don't have a Chubby Smoker to examine in person.

Thanks in advance!


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## caustic (Jun 30, 2010)

Now you got me thinking....

Does the whole thing need to be insulated or just the cooking chamber? I would assume the whole thing but wth do I know. Haha.


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## tom37 (Jun 30, 2010)

I think you would benifit from having the whole thing insulated but if you were to only do the cook chamber it would still be a benifit. Maybe check out the other section under builds and see what other have done on there insulation.

I think I would sandwich it in your large space and not worry about the tubing any more then capping it off to keep wasp out.


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## caustic (Jul 1, 2010)

I think I'm going to install reverse end caps all the way around it and put 1/2 inch insulation in the end caps. Then sheet the outside....I think.. unless someone strongly disagrees. This way I get insulation and the outside sheeted. Will add a little weight but I'll try to use thin gauge metal for the caps. All the caps are for are just to keep the insulation from being in the fire or cooking compartment.

Thanks!


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## caustic (Jul 1, 2010)

Day 3 Pic. I almost got the end caps in. Gonna try to finish them tonight along with the coal tray.


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## caustic (Jul 2, 2010)

Day 4! I'm tired of welding! Not much more to go... maybe 2 more days.


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## caustic (Jul 6, 2010)

Ok... should be done with this beast tomorrow!


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## tom37 (Jul 6, 2010)

Lookin Good!!!!


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## shtrdave (Jul 6, 2010)

Looks very nice, how did you insulate finally?


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## caustic (Jul 6, 2010)

I made end caps... or pans... 1/2 inch deep and sunk them in to the frame by a 1/4 inch. Then put 1 inch insulation in the cap. Then I sheeted over the insulation. You can kind of see that a few pics up..the end caps that is.  I used some rigid foil back insulation. It all came together rather well for never building a smoker before. I can't wait to season it and get a cook or 100 on it!


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## caustic (Jul 7, 2010)

Weighing in at 210lbs.... El Guapo!

Heavier than I wanted but it's still awesome! Also needs some touch up paint but no big deal. It's home and I'm seasoning it right now!


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## mrsb (Jul 7, 2010)

Nice job
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Looking forward to your first smoke with it!


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## harryho (Jul 7, 2010)

Now......that is a Smoke Vault!!!


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## caustic (Jul 10, 2010)

Well the maiden voyage went very well! The party was very satisfied. I cooked one fat side up and 1 fat side down to observe the differences on my own. There were 8 people at the party and 5 said fat side down was better and 3 said fat side up.


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## marty catka (Jul 11, 2010)

Great job on the build!   That just does not look like a home built smoker.  Now let's see the Qview.


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## caustic (Jul 11, 2010)

Thank you!

I thought qview were the pics I was posting on this thread. Is Qview something else? I searched the forums and qviews are just pics of people's food they cooked and they were in random forums.


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## eman (Jul 11, 2010)

Great looking smoker and awesome qview.

 Sorry i didn't see this post sooner.

 To cut down on weight all you would have had to do is once you had the steel box built was to insulate and cover w/ sheet metal.

 the insulation would keep the temps cool enought to not affect the sheet metal


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## caustic (Jul 11, 2010)

Thanks. I think most of my weight issue came from using random gauge metal that I could get for a good price from a local machine shop. Some of it was rather thick but they were "drops" that were cheap.


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