Gas bottle hot smoker

[kennett]

Playing about with scrap heap materials to make a hot smoker. Plan is to put another bottle on top to hold the food and smoke, does anyone have an idea of where the chimney should then exit? Straight out of the top is easy and should give a good draw, but potentially heat and smoke could exit too quickly? Other option is out of the bottle sideways with a 90⁰ bend but how far up or down to get a good draw and smoke

[B725]

The taller the flue pipe the more draw it will have can you make a slotted grill at the bottom to control the amount of air going in. 

[Old farrier]

very innovative 

not having a go at you personally 

however

 

Should anyone be using gas bottles to make anything and posting the pictures on the internet? 
as far as I’m aware they are all the property of the gas company

[Jonty]

Hi Kennett 

ideally you want indirect heat so that you are cooking in an oven rather than over a grill/fire.  If you’re putting your cook chamber on top of the firebox could you have a tube or pipe from the top of the firebox to the top of the cooking chamber and then site your chimney exit at the bottom of your cook chamber.  As long as your chimney is tall enough the draw will pull the heat and smoke across your food giving an even cook rather than blasting it with heat from below.  You should be able to control the cooking temps a lot better so you should cook a chicken high and fast or a pulled pork/brisket low and slow.  I probably didn’t explain the design very well, the principle is reverse flow smoking, if you google ‘vertical reverse flow smokers’ you’ll get a much better picture of what I’m trying to say.

I’m envious of anyone who can weld, it’s on my to do list to learn.  Good luck with your project.

 

 

This isn’t a brilliant example for your exact design but hopefully you’ll see the principle of the reverse flow.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Jonty

[kennett]

24 minutes ago, Jonty said:

Hi Kennett 

ideally you want indirect heat so that you are cooking in an oven rather than over a grill/fire.  If you’re putting your cook chamber on top of the firebox could you have a tube or pipe from the top of the firebox to the top of the cooking chamber and then site your chimney exit at the bottom of your cook chamber.  As long as your chimney is tall enough the draw will pull the heat and smoke across your food giving an even cook rather than blasting it with heat from below.  You should be able to control the cooking temps a lot better so you should cook a chicken high and fast or a pulled pork/brisket low and slow.  I probably didn’t explain the design very well, the principle is reverse flow smoking, if you google ‘vertical reverse flow smokers’ you’ll get a much better picture of what I’m trying to say.

I’m envious of anyone who can weld, it’s on my to do list to learn.  Good luck with your project.

 

 

This isn’t a brilliant example for your exact design but hopefully you’ll see the principle of the reverse flow.

Thanks for that, makes sense. This is the sort of principle I was thinking, but probably with the "cooking" bottle mounted vertically to give more space for different rack heights. The best way to learn to weld it grab some scrap and play, I find MIG a lot easier to use than stick.

[Jonty]

Thanks for the advice mate.

if you find it easier to mount it horizontally, horizontal reverse flow smokers use a baffle plate to divert the heat and smoke.  To be honest though, usually the cook chamber is a lot bigger than the smoke chamber.  When you get reading into it, there’s a lot of science put into the size of chambers/chimney heights etc.

that said, there’s a lot to be said for enjoying yourself with a bit of trial,and error in your man cave 👍

[stumpy69]

Look up UDS. They are a simple type of hot smoker built using an oil drum. They are controlled by limiting the amount of air getting into the charcoal/wood chunks. Im sure you could use this theory in your design to simplify the internals i.e. no baffle plates. I can do a 24hr burn on my UDS keeping the temperature between 220 & 230°F using approx 20l of charcoal. The only issue with this is if you open the lid it spikes in temperature for up to 10 mins because you let lots of air (oxygen) in.

[islandgun]

I made a hot smoker from a gas bottle, just stood it on some bricks and had the heat source below the bottle. had problems making the door seal

[Walker570]

A hot smoker is really just and oven in which you have placed some wood shavings which will smoulder. The ones you can purchase are heated by a simple tray of fuel beneath and the shavings are on the inner surface of the 'box' and the meat on a grid above it.  My little ABU I have had for forty odd years and works on this principal and is very efficient.

What you are planning is what the Yanks call a 'broiler' I believe and I built one out of a 45 gal drum.  The charcoal goes on a rack in the base with a draw hole alongside with a slide  controlling air flow. The meat goes on a rack 2ft above the heat source and on the opposite side so not directly above.  There is a slide on a hole in the lid where I can control air flow as well.

I set the charcoal at about 6am in the morning and put two or three chunks of oak or plum which has been dried but soaked in water for 45mins prior to putting it on top of the fire.  This produces the smoke.  Have put the meat on the rack I shut it up with just a half of the holes showing. I have also installed a temp gauge and want it around 240, it is going to sit in there until 5pm.  I check every hour for the first four hours and once I am happy the meat is nicely smoked, I wrap in two layers of tinfoil and may add a few more bits of charcoal to maintain temperature.  I check with a meat temp gauge about 4pm and if cooked through then I remove the foil let the charcoal die down and leave for an hour or so to 'dry' and caramalise the surface.   There is very little left of a a whole brisket when we have a barbecue.   I do marinate and prepare the meat prior to it going in the 'oven'.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Walker570

[kennett]

18 hours ago, Walker570 said:

A hot smoker is really just and oven in which you have placed some wood shavings which will smoulder. The ones you can purchase are heated by a simple tray of fuel beneath and the shavings are on the inner surface of the 'box' and the meat on a grid above it.  My little ABU I have had for forty odd years and works on this principal and is very efficient.

What you are planning is what the Yanks call a 'broiler' I believe and I built one out of a 45 gal drum.  The charcoal goes on a rack in the base with a draw hole alongside with a slide  controlling air flow. The meat goes on a rack 2ft above the heat source and on the opposite side so not directly above.  There is a slide on a hole in the lid where I can control air flow as well.

I set the charcoal at about 6am in the morning and put two or three chunks of oak or plum which has been dried but soaked in water for 45mins prior to putting it on top of the fire.  This produces the smoke.  Have put the meat on the rack I shut it up with just a half of the holes showing. I have also installed a temp gauge and want it around 240, it is going to sit in there until 5pm.  I check every hour for the first four hours and once I am happy the meat is nicely smoked, I wrap in two layers of tinfoil and may add a few more bits of charcoal to maintain temperature.  I check with a meat temp gauge about 4pm and if cooked through then I remove the foil let the charcoal die down and leave for an hour or so to 'dry' and caramalise the surface.   There is very little left of a a whole brisket when we have a barbecue.   I do marinate and prepare the meat prior to it going in the 'oven'.

Spot on, thanks for that 👍

[John_R]

On 03/05/2020 at 14:03, Walker570 said:

broiler

A broiler is actually what most UK people call the grill, as in the one in most household ovens. 

 

 

[Walker570]

7 hours ago, John_R said:

A broiler is actually what most UK people call the grill, as in the one in most household ovens. 

 

 

My friend down in South Texas has a unit which looks like Stevensons Rocket and can put two full sized briskets in it side by side. He refered to that as a broiler. It also had a smoke chamber alongside it.  We ate some magnificent meat off of that machine.

[John_R]

1 hour ago, Walker570 said:

My friend down in South Texas has a unit which looks like Stevensons Rocket and can put two full sized briskets in it side by side. He refered to that as a broiler. It also had a smoke chamber alongside it.  We ate some magnificent meat off of that machine.

Basically the heat source must be above the food otherwise it's not really a broiler.