ECB Mod - Walmart Model

[smokey-mikey]

So when I first began to try smoking meats, I did not want to have a large investment just in case I sucked at it. But my little bullet smoker from Walmart can smoke as hard as the others, just for not that many people. And I found out, I don't suck at it! ;)

Here is how I received it from Walmart, and I tried pulled pork on it. Came out great, but I used a whole lot of charcoal and chips. Plus I noticed the fire had issues breathing.... I read through these forums on some of the other mods people have done and googled some too....


The first thing I did was create a way for me to dump the ash so there was some more breathing room. I cut out a square about 4" all around on the bottom of the charcoal pan and attached a metal plate with some nuts and bolts. This way I can dump ash and control air under the fire. I also drilled 2 x 1" holes on 2 sides of the pan.

Here you can see I added about 6 x 1/2" holes on two sides of the pan, opposite of the 2 x 1 "holes. I have to admit, these alone have allowed me to cook pulled pork and ribs (over 8 hours of heat) from one bag of Kingsford charcoal. You gotta use Kingsford.

Maybe in the future, I will look into a larger one, but for now, my $30 investment puts out priceless product!

 

[GaryHibbert]

Glad to hear that a few mods have msde your Wally World smoker work so well. A smoker sure doesn't have to be fancy or expendive to put out some good Q.
Gary

 

[Rings Я Us]

Yeah.. nice.. you could cover that water pan and have no water in it. Or you could fill it with some lava rocks or ceramic briquetes and cover those with foil.. Or have no water pan and just a piece of foil in its place.. water in the pan you line with foil will keep lower temps and spikes from happening quickly.. So many combinations.
Drip pan on rack over water pan.. bunch of stuff to try.

 

[Rings Я Us]

I can't see how those legs are attached to the inside of the smoker. Some of the fine tuning of that style smoker can be done by raising and lowering the pan of coals. Under or just in the smoker. the legs being moved to the outside allows the pan height to be adjusted.. The pan can get 3 or 4 long bolts added to it's rim and they act as legs to stand the pan on its own..

 

[Rings Я Us]

Being able to just lift the smoker off that pan at any time allows you to add coals easy.. or shake ashes out without disturbing the food on the rack.
Also you can put the pan of coals on a block to raise it or put the smoker legs on bricks to raise it from the pan..
I would like to know the diameter of that smoker cooking chamber from edge to edge at its maximum width.. is it 17.25 " ? And the internal width of the body.. 17"?

 

[Stasher1]

Nice mods. I have a very similar Masterbuilt bullet smoker from Home Depot that I picked up for $15. Found another one for $13 that was missing a few pieces and built a cheapo version of a WSM...


I used the lid and a set of rack supports to create a base to hold the modified charcoal pan so I can reload it whenever I need to.