Topic: Off Set - Pit Smoker Build BBQ

[Bill K]

 Does anyone here have any experience building a BBQ pit? I'm in the process of building one from a 250 gal propane tank, trailer mounted. This is a off set design with the fire box on the end. I've been all over the web. Just curious to what input I may get here.

                                                            Thanks
                                                                       Bill K

                                                                 
                                                                 

[MidTNJasonF]

Plan a removable set of center dividers for your cooking chamber and a second stack. Even better would be to split the lid so you can access either side of the chamber and run only one side of the pit if you have a smaller amount of food to smoke.

We built one a bunch of years back out of sheet steel and got real fancy with a counter balanced giant lid that covered the entire massive cooking area. We quickly found that when we were doing different types of meat with different basting schedules and cooking times we were having to open the lid and expose everything. It played hell with trying to maintain temps and keeping a good blanket of smoke on the meat. We chopped the lid up and rebuilt it into three sections. This worked well for the times we had all the entire pit loaded but not so well when we had a smaller amount of meat on. We ended up building a divider that could block off the far end of the pit so we did not need the volume of smoke to fill the entire pit.

Hope that makes sense. I keep wanting to get back into BBQ competitions but never seem to have the time. Maybe next year.

[faux fiddy]

Sounds like a good project.

I used to cold smoke whole salmon inside a regular gas grille. I just used a large coffee can with holes punched in the bottom rim with a can opener, start it with a few charcoals in the bottom and once there were a few coals I would start adding soaked smoking wood (Peeled Alder in Alaska, Hickory or Mesquite down south). I would pick the smaller 3-4 pound reds or coho to do whole fish.

It usually took a couple days round the clock attention, or at least every few hours it should get some attention. Made some real melt in your mouth product.

It is not real technical, and doesn't have to be complicated to make something come out woth a good smoke flavor/ preservation.

1/4" Stainless screen on a frame is really good material for trays if you are doing fish.

I like the idea that something as large as your project would have different doors and perhaps removeable dividers for smaller batches, different cooking times  or rotations for different serving times. You aren't always going to be  feeding an army at one time.