I mentioned this in the other thread on the portable smoker. I've started building a new one for the home. The original one is going to get refurbished and sent to my sisters house.

This one is a bit bigger and is specifically designed to accomidate two EZ-QUE Hobo 21.5" x 8" Rotisseries.

This one needed 9 full sheets of hardibacker and the entire unit is glued and clamped together using Gorilla Glue, no screws this time as they really are not needed and just make finishing the outside harder. Everything is double walled.

I start by drawing out my top and bottom and two sides and then cutting everything ahead of time and gluing them together.

For all of the gluing, I dampen one piece, spread the glue liberally and then use a foam roller to roll it all over, every inch of surface has a good thin layer of glue on it, and everything is clamped tightly. This smoker is incredibly strong compared to the screwed together one and that one is as solid as a rock.

Top Pieces

2 - 24" x 22" outside pieces - I make this a bit larger from front to back as I like a lip on the front for looks.
2 - 22 1/4" x 18 11/16" inside pieces

The smaller pieces are placed on the larger pieces with a 7/16 lip on the back and 7/8 on the sides. Glued and clamped and I am using the hammered/non-smooth side of the hardibacker as the outside for aesthetic purposes as I like the look of it.

Side pieces, This is simple

4 - 19 1/8" x 43 1/8"

Glue and clamp the pieces together to form two sides.


Back & Front

2 - 24" x 43 1/8"
2 - 22 1/4" x 42 1/4"

The smaller pieces are placed on the larger pieces with a 7/8" lip on the sides and 7/16" on the top and bottom. I actually pieced two pieces together from the scraps for the inside of the door, if you don't want to do this then buy another piece of hardibacker, but you might as well use the scrap as there is a good bit of it in this design.

Once you get all the pieces cut and glued together then glue and clamp the tops and bottoms insuring you leave the 7/16" lip on the back so that the back will interlock. Once that dries then turn it front side down, place the back piece onto the unit to insure it interlocks and fits into place, if not then trip any areas that are preventing it from dropping right in. Use glue on the side edges, the top and bottom edges and all the way around the edges of the back piece. Drop the back piece in place and clamp to the sides and use some weight for downward pressure. Once everything dries then clean up excess glue with a sharp wood chisel and you can use a wood rasp to even up all the outside joints if necessary.

And that's about where I am at this juncture. I have about 5 hours total actual work time, not including the drying time for the glue.

I'll update as I go...

Top, bottom and side pieces all glued together.

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Box is all put together.

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Couple of pics of it sitting next to the original.

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More later...

Bluesin

Nice clean cuts on the hardibacker. What do you use for a blade? George

Bluesin,

Have you built enough of these now to be considered a manufacturer?

I've noticed each one is proving to be superior to the previous (such as gluing the panels). This is how we learn from our toils.

But you are putting me to shame (on your 3rd) as I've still just got a bunch of cut up hardie panels, sheets of 304 stainless and a dream....

Maybe in the fall? Meanwhile - I'm keeping my eye on you and learning the small points before I start assembling. Thanks!

Mike

George,

I used a Task Force Turbo Diamond Blade and a Rip-Master Circular Saw Guide.

They really did come out clean and tight, the last one I did I cut everything on a table saw, doing it this way was much easier and much faster, I pretty much had all the pieces cut in less than an hour...

Bluesin

Nice to have all the right toys. I'll get the diamond blade for the next project. I can't imagine the mess on a table saw tho. I have a work shop bursting at the seams with tools but don't have the guide yet. Just don't cut enough panels to make it worth buying.

Well if manufacturing them for myself counts then you are correct. I have to admit that I am a bit suprised, given how easy they are to manufacture that we have not seen more folks take up the task, especially given how good they cook.



Yep, better each time, in addition to the construction this one is going to incoporate the rotisseries and the firebrick firebox, which will be nice improvements. I just have to watch myself for overkill, heck last night I was thinking that I could actually install 4 of those EZ-QUE rotisseries if I staggered and offset them. I have only ordered one for starts and won't actually order another unless I really find a need for it, it will however be positionable in both the lower chamber for high heat rotisserie if desired and in the upper chamber for low and slow types of cooking...

Bluesin

Mess, yep, if you use any saw with this stuff you have to do it outside and hopefully you'll wear a mask as it is quite dusty. However, its the only real way to get nice smooth cuts on this stuff...

Bluesin

Updating this as I go...

Cut in the bottom air vent and built the firebox over the holiday weekend.

Again, I use a metal AC/Heat floor diffuser for the bottom air control, here it is installed.

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Here are pics of the firebox, two cleanout vents at the front and a 2 inch opening all alog the bottom for the coals to fall down to. I plan on placing a charcoal grate along the bottom on the two cut pieces.

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I used about 4 pints of pre-mixed kiln cement. Pretty sure this stuff is what we used to call fire clay back in the day I built fireplace's for a living.

Anyway, so far so good. Got to pick up the top daisy wheel top vent from the BGE store, install the shelving racks and hang the door next...

What's this baby gonna weigh Bluesin? Or do you have a forklift handy and don't need to worry about that? Or maybe you're building it in palace? George

George, I'm assuming that it'll weigh about 300 pounds when done. Actually, its pretty movable with hand trucks, however once its painted it'll stay where it is...

Bluesin

Ok, so the beast is done and getting ready for its initial burn in. Pics of the finishing up process.

Top is in, again I just used a BGE daisy wheel as the top vent. I cut the hole and then support it underneath by screwing in a piece of wood and a thick piece of paper, then I drop the top in there and concrete it in, once dry unscrew the support.

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I wanted an adjustable firebox system in this so I ended up cutting one of my pizza kiln shelves in half and trimming it up with the tile saw. I then cut one of my firebricks into 4 1 inch thick pieces longwise and bolted then onto the kiln shelf, this was done so the kiln shelves would stand upright.

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The next 2 are them in place

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Here is a view with the other kiln shelve placed on top for indirect cooking

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I did not get any pictures during the painting process or attaching the door and the silicone smoke seal, a tip here is that if you build one of these, then attach the smoke seal, lay it on its back and drop the door on it and drill all the holes for your hinges while it is in this position, this insures that the door is tightly coupled to the box and the hinges are installed accordingly.

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This one really did come out nice, I'm really looking forward to using it!

The motor for the rotisserie is on backorder like just about everything made in China is these days, so I have not installed it yet but will post follow-up pics when I get it installed...

Bluesin

I assume the heat source for this smoker is charcoal? Did you consider making a separate door for feeding coals douring the cook? George

I think it's time for you to start taking orders for this line of smokers!

Nicely done! It's by far your best effort to date! Can't wait to see some food smoked in it.

Tell me - does the paint completely burn off as far as a "paint smell/taste" goes? How long does that take - one or two burn-ins?

Mike

George, yes it is charcoal and the original design I did had two doors and a slide out firebox using a smokey joe silver as the box. However after using it for over a year and learning that the heat retention is so good in these things that it really served no purpose. It is also so efficient that once the mass of it gets up to temp it really takes very little charcoal to run it and opening the door every now and then to add a chunk or two doesn't affect the temp inside at all really. It also returns to temp within 30 seconds at most.



I use high heat paint so it does not really gas out, however I will burn it in at 400 or so degrees for a couple of hours. About to do that now...

Bluesin

Lit her up, she's currently burning in at 400 degrees...

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So far so good, gonna do a couple of Cornish Hens tonight in it...

Bluesin

Oh. I thought sure I'd see pizza for the virgin cook.

Looks sooooo good!!

Mike

Most excellent work Bluesin!

Nice Job. Thanks for the post. I'm building a vertical smoker for my new competition rig and will incorporate some of the same practices. The overall dimensions of mine will be 3'x3'x6'. Can't wait to get going on it.

Wow, that's a big unit, do the competitions you cook in require you to cook that much food?

Post some pics of your build, we'd love to see them...

Bluesin

Well after a couple of months of haggling with EZ-Que, who apparently is going out of business I finally managed to get the rotisseries installed. I originally ordered them from EZ-Que and when i did they informed me that they did not have any motors in stock and it would be three weeks, no problem I said, not in any hurry. Then three weeks passed and they still did not have them, another 0 days they said, then another 10 days, etc. I checked around and found them at Amazon, I called EZ-Que and told them that Amazon had them and I could just get them from there and EZ-Que could just send me the cradles t a price minus the motors. They said they woulkd check with Amazon to see if they could get the motors and get back with me and I waited and never heard from them again. I went ahead and purchased the motors from Amazon and called EZ-Que/Sent emails to tell them that I had the motors and to just send me the cradles, no reply to either the phone call or the email. So I went back to Amazon and just bought some EZ- Que cradles from them that pretty much fit what I needed, they are replacement spits for a Weber rotisserie, but they were the size I wanted.

Only problem I had is apparently the Weber rotisserie spins counter-clockwise and the motors I bought spin clockwise, luckily for me they are DC motors so its just a matter of reversing the batteries to make the motor spin in the other direction...

Picture of the mounts, I just made the brackets from some 8 gage steel...

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And here is a pic of them inside the smoker.

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Going to throw a butt in there today and see how they work. So far I am absoutely loving this new smoker, it really is the pinnacle of outdoor cooking as far as I'm concerned, now that it has the rotisseries in it I really can't imagine wanting for anything as far as cooking devices goes...

I issued a dispute to EZ-Que through American Express so hopefully I won't lose that lump of cashola. And I do hope they can get things worked out as the products are top notch for sure...

Bluesin

Dave,

Sorry to hear of the headaches with EZ-Que. I can't imagine them holding back you dinero!

Your smoker reminds me (on a smaller scale) of the chicken rotisserie inside Costco! To bad you couldn't put them on a chain track drive, so as they spin, they also move rotate from bottom to top for more even cooking! I'm sure that's your next mod!

Looking good - post your first roto cooks.

Mike

In my dispute I specifically said I still wanted the merchandise, the problem is aparently they cannot get stuff because they relied totally on foreign manufactured goods and because of the supply side shutdown in trade with America they can't get goods. The only companies that are allowed to get any goods currently is the bigger companies, this is one reason people are having such a hard time getting replacement parts for grills and such.

As to the top to bottom, not sure how much that would help really as this smoker is wood fired and has a strong convection flow, just having the meat turn will help a lot. The smoker really has very little variance in temps from the top to the bottom once you settle into a cook and everything heats up.

Anyway, the butt is in and here it is!

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Dave

I take it the hardibacker material that you are using is 7/16 inches thick?

The sides, having 2 identical pieces glued together, would be 14/16 inches thick or 7/8 inches.

Do you always use double hardibacker walls on all your builds?

Do you recommend Sumo Glue (that I saw used on another post) or Gorilla glue?

I'm thinking about building an electric smoker based on your design.

George

It must be fun hanging out at your house in the summer? I especially like the refractory brick job, real cool!

Thanks Super!

GeorgeH, sorry for the late reply, I'm working two jobs now trying to get ready to open up a new retail store.


Yep, Its much stronger and much much more insulated, hardibacker simply does not conduct heat nor does it radiate very well so once its heated I can pretty much keep the unit at smoking temps with one or two pieces of charcoal burning at a time. I do have a single wall portable one that I use which I would suggest that you do if your going to go with electric, which you can see the design and build for in this thread. It takes a good startup fire in my unit to heat it up so I don't think that if you use an electric heat source you'll be able to heat it up as the hardibacker will absorb a lot of heat energy until the temps even out between it and the air inside so the single wall unit will probably be better...

Dave

I would use something like dura rock or a cement based board as my liner then maybe some hardie around that it will hold heat like it was brick then


jim

Jim, Hardibacker is a cement based board, what you do not use is Fiberrock, which I used on the first one that pretty much disintegrated...

Dave

I had started mine a couple of years ago, then shelved it (for many reasons unrelated to the build itself), and hopefully will finish it someday.. Along with my custom pizza oven - another pile of cut up ss sheets..

But I used double wall hardibacker (laminated together), lining the inside (upper "smoking" compartment with 304 stainless sheets (16 gauge) and anodized aluminum sheets (22 gauge) on the outside (with 1-1/4" x 1-1/4" angle aluminum corners). My reasoning: stainless inside would be much easier to keep clean. The aluminum outside would look good with little maintenance and stay cooler to the touch.

The lower compartment (fire section) is lined with fire brick, with a 15" square flue opening into the smoking compartment above it. I have two swiveling cap openings on the lower (front left and right rear) sides of the fire compartment to control air input.

Any thoughts good or bad on this approach? I got as far as cutting all the material, and used my sheet metal brake to hem all the edges of the interior stainless sheets for "seamed" inside corners. The aluminum does not require hemming as it is held tightly with the angle aluminum corners. All corners will be sealed with fireproof caulking and bolted together with ss bolts/washers/nuts.

The doors are two sheets of laminated hardie wrapped with ss inside and out. I'm using ss handles, and boring a hole in each door for thermometers, one on the lower "fire compartment" door, and another one on the "smoking" upper compartment door. Plus one more centered on the top of the smoker, with a ss 3" vent stack on the back edge of the top (with a moveable baffle to control the opening size of the stack).

I'm hooking up a NG burner to the fire compartment just below a wire grid that will hold wood chunks/split logs (the NG is mostly just to start the wood burning, but also to subsidize a long smoke (such as butts and briskets) which just need wood smoke the first couple of hours, then a low gas flame after (I'm assuming the first couple of hours will give sufficient smoke ring/flavor) that I won't need to tend to a wood fire for 12+ hours for those longer cooks.

I've got 4 ss strips with holes bored for shelf clips that will hold the adjustable shelves (ss cooking grates). These are removable for easy cleaning. Plus 6 ss hanging clips for the intent of well, hanging pieces of meat!

The entire box is 24" x 24" x 44" high, and sit on 4 swiveling (locking) castors.

Any thoughts/comments on this design? My primary goal was to have an efficient, well working smoker that needed minimal "watching" for long smokes, easy cleanup, no permanent maintenance to keep it looking clean, and an attractive exterior.

For now - just a pile of components that never got secured together.. mikey the procrastinator

Thats good to know Dave...................the interior hardie backer is 90% cement and sand but has a thermal resistance. I would think something more pourus would hold more heat and act like brick or block, dura rock can take some heat and hold it as it is poured in sheets......... fiberrock consists of fine fibres spun from rocks melted at a high temperature and bonded with a thermosetting resin I can see where that would fall apart on you..

jim

Thats like my cookshack smoker Mike interior stainless with insulated walls so the built up heat doesn't dissipate, the hardie should work fine for an exterior, my approach would be instead of laminating for thickness insulating for heat retention just like an oven is built although with a gas or electric heat supply it might not even matter


I just like the idea of making your own.............. Dave's Idea is sweet


jim