heat element for smoker

[dirtking]

What have you used for a heating element for your homemade ssmoker. I have an OLD fridge with out the plastic I am converting into a smoker but need a heat plate or something to put the wood chip pan on.

[JeffB]

A freind of mine used the side burner off his old grill that worked well.

[sparkyaber]

On my smoker, my friend cut a hole in the bottom to which we attached a flue that carried heat from a little propane stove up into the smoking chamber. We set the wood chip pan right on top of the flue giving us more room in the smoker for our eatables.

[MNHuntress]

Go to Walmart or Target and get a double buffet burner. They are about $30 or so. I like having the double, not the single, because on days like today it helps if you need more heat. Also in my old fridge smoker I hang the elec. cord out the corner and just shut the door. Also remember to have a water pan in there. Mine's on 4 legs and sits over the one burner and the other burner holds the smoke pan.

[gizmoguy]

Any electric hot plate will work. One thing to understand. The heat control knob has a bi-metal safety switch built into it. It turns down the heat as the hot plate gets hotter. What I did was remove the heat control and rewired it to the front panel in my old food warmer that I converted to a smoker. That way the bi-metal safty switch doesn't heat up as it would being inside the smoker with the heating element giving me much better heat comtrol. If it starts out red hot and later you cant seem to get it to turn red it is the bi-metal safty switch turning down the heat. It can be a real pain when you want to turn up the heat at the end to finish out a load. You can get high temp insutated wire at most hardware stores.

[dirtking]

Thanks for the advice!