Smoker Build

[Scratch]

I have a friend who likes to smoke meat. He decided he really wanted a big smoker and that he wanted to save money and build one instead of buying one. The problem is, he doesn't really have a lot of tools and doesn't know how to weld. He asked me if I could suggest a good welder to buy, and I told him to just come over and use mine since I have everything he needs to build it. I could even help him with the welding. That was before I realized how large of a smoker he wanted to build...

Initially, he found and bought a 330 gallon propane tank and was going to cut that down to the size he really wanted which was a 250 gallon tank. (Both of those sizes have 36" tanks) Then he found a guy in Georgia that sells a kit to build your own smoker, that included a 250 gallon tank along with pretty much everything else he would need. I was up for a road trip so we made the trip from Wisconsin to Georgia to pick up the goods. He decided to build two smokers, and sell one to help pay for the first one. So off we went and we came home with two 250 gallon tanks and a bunch of other heavy stuff.

The 330 gallon tank sold in less than a day.

[Scratch]

First step was to build a rotisserie for the propane tank. This way we could set it on there and rotate it completely around to make it easier to cut, grind, and weld. We put wheels on it so we can move it around the shop easily. We also built one for the firebox. We put that one on a pallet jack so we could easily raise it into position

[Scratch]

Here is the pipe for the firebox set on its rotisserie. The firebox is made from 3/8" thick pipe that is 24" in diameter and around 30" long. In it's previous life, it was a pole for a Chick-fil-A sign!

[Scratch]

I have a CNC plasma cutting table so we designed and cut out an end and door for the firebox. We used 1/4" steel.

[Scratch]

Some of the extra stuff we brought home from Georgia were parts for the hinges, handles, etc... like these laser cut parts.
I have laser envy.

[Scratch]

We used some 1/2" all thread to line up the firebox door hinges and weld them in place. Then we drilled for the handle and welded that in. We built both fireboxes at the same time.

[arizonian]

Quite the project! I could see a build like that in Texas where BBQ is king and everything is bigger. A trip to GA would entail a stop in TX since I'd have to go thru there anyway.

Are you sure your buddy isn't from TX?

[randydupree]

thats going to be very nice!
So,where and who in Ga has those parts?
I live in Ga part time,and i have a bigass vacuum tank that came out of a hospital.
its 1/2 thick or more,i was thinking a pizza oven and a smoker,its that big.

[Scratch]

No my buddy isn't from Texas. We both grew up in Minnesota. He's just one of those guys that when he decides to get something, he goes all out. Fine by me, I'm not paying for it.

The guy in Georgia is called mysticsmokers.com (There you can also see what ours will kind of look like) He's a small shop that mostly just makes parts for smoker builds now. He does build complete smokers but he's retired now and focuses mostly on just the parts. He's been doing it for 30 years and at the time we were there, he had built 192 smokers over the last 30 years. Great guy. Spent the whole day with us giving us tips and showing us around.

1/2" thick tank would be nice! Our tank is about 1/4". One thing that wouldn't be nice is the weight of those doors, unless you added counterweights. You'd probably want counterweights for doors that thick, but they are easy to do and actually a great thing to have on a smoker.

[JBFab]

That'll be a fun build! Is he doing a traditional offset, or a reverse flow?

Here's a big reverse flow I built a couple of years ago:

https://www.customdesignandfab.com/project-portfolio