UDS / Homemade Barrel Cookers

Thought I'd start a thread on cookers made from steel drums since there seems to be lots of interest and they are easy to obtain. Here's a 30 gallon salvage drum that ate my Brinkmann Gourmet smoker:



I was hoping some people would post some pics or give some info on offsets, uprights, anything built from old steel drums.

I know we discussed this some in another thread a few days ago, and I posted an update there this morning. A co-worker tells me he can get me a 55 gallon drum at no cost, so if he comes through I'll be starting on mine pretty soon. If not, it will probably be a little later this summer.

Either way, I'm gonna try to take pictures step by step as I go to post here.

Jamesstew, I think there probably is quit a few different rigs made from drums.
I made this one from a clean 55 gallon drum & some welded up pipe for the fire box. I'm not sure if it would be classified as a vertical smoker or an offset.
Rick

OK.

It's been made a sticky for a while.

Let's include uglies and any other drum based cookers as well.

I have 2 horizontal 55's that we use from time to time at church.

I'll dig thru and see if I can find some posts with pics.

Keep it on topic and it will live.

Thanks for the sticky YB.

Anyone have any good ideas on locating 55 gallon drums at a reasonable price? As I said before, someone can supposedly get me one free but I want to have a backup plan just in case he doesn't come through. Doing a little research, the best price I've been able to come up with for a new one is $70 plus freight charges.

I know where to get more than a few old oil furnace containers for free and have always wanted to make a rig out of one.

i have made a few verticle drum smokers ala Big Drum Smoker. If anyone is interested in building one, let me know and i can send out directions.

Motley Que, that's a pretty nice looking rig there. How many intake vents do you have there, and what size? Do you have a ball valve on one of them?

I pretty much have it all figured out how I'm gonna build mine, it's just a matter of getting the drum and the time to do it. The actual work will only take a few hours, and I have access to a welding machine to seal weld the pipe nipples in place for the intake vents.

I now have 2 different people telling me that they can get me a 55 gallon drum at no cost, so I'm going to give them some time to come through for me before I worry about trying to buy one somewhere to build one.

mine is a no weld version. I have 4 air intakes, 1 with a ball valve. Just make sure you have 24 inches from the fire grate to the cooking grate. This is a 55 gallon drum and I have gotten up to 20 hours on 1 load of lump

These guys sell brand new drums for $62
http://www.iconserv.com/index.html

Motley Que wrote:

mine is a no weld version. I have 4 air intakes, 1 with a ball valve. Just make sure you have 24 inches from the fire grate to the cooking grate. This is a 55 gallon drum and I have gotten up to 20 hours on 1 load of lump

Sounds good. How many vents do you open to maintain 225*? I'm likely still going to weld mine, but it's nice to know that I don't have to if it's going to be too much of a hassle.

Here's a project from last fall. I had made it with the intention of doing a BCT(turkey) for Thanksgiving, but it never happened. I had to cut and resize the barrel to fit the Kettle. I have yet to use it. The lid isn't a tight fit, but it should do the job. It worked quite well during the seasoning process and held heat and smoke pretty good.

I've been thinking about this for a while now. I've got a good friend that drove for Budweiser for 12 years. He says that he can get me a ton of kegs. Do you master craftsmen think that a keg can stand up to the necessary heat requirements?

I've seen grills made from beer kegs. I would think they should hold up from the heat.

jdub24 wrote:

I've been thinking about this for a while now. I've got a good friend that drove for Budweiser for 12 years. He says that he can get me a ton of kegs. Do you master craftsmen think that a keg can stand up to the necessary heat requirements?

A stainless keg should have no problem withstanding the heat. You would probably need a waterpan if you were trying to do a low and slow. It will be smaller than an ECB or WSM