UDS Build instructions or tips?

[jayzi]

Anyone ever use a closed top barrel and just cut the top off?

[Big Ed]

Anyone ever use a closed top barrel and just cut the top off?

I'm sure its been done!! Your gonna get a lot of different advice and asswers, some cook hot & fast and others cook low & slow with or without water pans or heat diverters! My UDS has a weber lid and 3 racks, bottom rack is for a water pan cause I like to cook low & slow. I have 2 1''ball valves and 2 1''holes with magnets over them if I want to run it hotter. If you need a charcoal basket just PM me, I can make you one!!

[Swamp Donkeyz BBQ]

My drum, in it's previous life, was a closed lid hydraulic oil drum. I used an air chisel to cut the top out and with some light grinding the Weber lid fits perfectly. I have three 3/4" ball valves for intakes and two grates 7" apart. The first grate is only 1" below the top lip of the drum. I use a pizza pan with holes in it, on the bottom rack, as a diffuser when I cook Brisket on it.

Take your time and plan the build the way you want it. If you want to put in an extra rack for a water pan, go for it. It's YOUR cooker and it needs to make YOU happy. Remember, it's a lot harder to go back and add things after you've completed it and done a few cooks.

[Swamp Donkeyz BBQ]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk 21374151034.306650.jpg

[jayzi]

The lid I have on my drum has two holes... One is the standard bung hole and the other is a smaller hole. What are y'alls suggestions for making one a exhaust vent and how to cap it off to prevent rain and also be able to close it up to choke the fire out?

[BluDawg]

unscrew the 2" plug and screw it back in when your done with the cook.

[Swamp Donkeyz BBQ]

Most folks run the exhaust wide open and control the air flow with the intakes. here's a pic I found of one with an exhaust damper.

UDS020.jpg

You can screw the 2" pipe directly into the bung on your flat top.

[jayzi]

unscrew the 2" plug and screw it back in when your done with the cook.

My top has some plastic plugs in it that didn't seem to want to really come out easily. I figured that I would need to find a replacement for that.

[Swamp Donkeyz BBQ]

You can get stainless plugs at any hardware store. If the plastic ones don't want to come out, drill a hole in them and back them out with an ease out.

[BluDawg]

This is how I did mine

[jayzi]

FAIL! So I removed the bung and peeked in, guess what I saw? Go ahead guess! Yep TAN LINER! I thought for sure that since I got closed barrels that were used to transport transformer oil would have been unlined! Ugh!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[jayzi]

Looks like I might just break down and head down to Dallas Steel Drums and pay the $41 for an unlined flat top drum. From what I have been reading it is well worth the money to be able to avoid the burn out , grind out, sand out, clean out of a lined drum! I am still waiting to hear back from a couple of folks on some barrels. I can't wait to get going on this thing!

JZ

[jayzi]

Couple of questions as far as temperature goes in these things if you are cooking on two grates won't the bottom grate cook much faster and hotter? Any of you use diffusers? I think BluDawg said he uses a 3" cylinder in the middle of his charcoal basket, does this help move the heat to the outside better?

JZ

[BluDawg]

I only run 1 rack in mine and the 3" cylinder of expanded in the basket evens the temps out

[jayzi]

Here is the UDS my buddy built! I wanted someone to go through the build process with me and he jumped ahead and just built his! Oh well, mine will come along soon enough!