Fuel oil barrel roaster/smoker

[IndyEFI500]

So a friend of mine has decided we need to build a hog roaster/smoker from a fuel oil barrel. We have looked at a another friend of mine's and got some ideas but he only builds his for roasting hogs. Part of the reason we are thinking of doing this is to also create a large scale smoker for sausage. We will probably also be mounting it on an old boat trailer to make it portable. Any thoughts or ideas from someone who has knowledge of these kind of things would be greatly appreciated.

[CAMAN]

Once you think you have cleaned the tank enough, do it again....and again....and again....

[Kyle]

A friend of mine turned an old oil barrel into a smoker. Pretty easy concept. He drilled a few holes in the sides near the top and put some metal rods through to create a hanger for sausage. He heats up charcoal in his weber grill and then transfers a dozen or so hot brickettes into two pans which he places on the bottom. Then he puts his wood chips on the hot coals and thats it. If you do it just like this it will act as a cold smoker. Wouldn't be hard to put burner in the bottom for more heat or even just add a bunch of hot charcoal...

[Kyle]

A friend of mine turned an old oil barrel into a smoker. Pretty easy concept. He drilled a few holes in the sides near the top and put some metal rods through to create a hanger for sausage. He heats up charcoal in his weber grill and then transfers a dozen or so hot brickettes into two pans which he places on the bottom. Then he puts his wood chips on the hot coals and thats it. If you do it just like this it will act as a cold smoker. Wouldn't be hard to put burner in the bottom for more heat or even just add a bunch of hot charcoal...

[huntnfish]

Here is a link to one a buddy and I built last summer. We are in the planning stages of building a smoke box underneath and behind the axle. This will be attached to the frame of the trailer and piped into the cooker. We also plan to use propane for the smoke box also.

Cooker build

[IndyEFI500]

Thanks guys. That is a very different way of doing it from everything I have ever seen by laying it on its side. I also never thought of a burner just from regular pipe. More food for thought I guess.

[huntnfish]

Thanks guys. That is a very different way of doing it from everything I have ever seen by laying it on its side. I also never thought of a burner just from regular pipe. More food for thought I guess.

When we were doing our research we didn't find many like that either. We really wanted to have more cooking surface so we figured laying it like that would work better for a hog split in the middle. There were more than a couple beverages consumed in the brainstorming for this project. It was one of those things that we always talked about and after it was done both admitted that we didn't think it would ever become a reality.

There is still quite a bit we want to do to finish it off. I mentioned the smoke box plus we need to mount the burner permanently into the bottom and get an ignition set up. Right now we have a hole drilled by the burner that we use to light the burner. We are also trying to figure out some sort of couter weight to make it easier to lift the lid. Its not horrible as it is but we'd like to do something to lighten it. We have also talked about getting it sandblasted and paint it but there's something about that rusty horrible looking cooker putting out great food. Maybe we're lowering peoples expectations so they aren't as critical of the food. We also would like to figure out an easier way to flip half a hog on the grate. We plan to mount some sort of handle on it and probably just take the whole thing out of the cooker when we have to flip a hog but that could be interesting when there's 100 pounds of pork on it.

We did those 12 butts and also did 2 other whole pigs split down the middle last year. Everything turned out great but with a little smoke it will be much better.

It turned out way better than my buddy or I ever imagined, especially considering when we figured out how bad of welders we are, but it was a good time and now we've got a kick butt cooker that will work for pretty much anything we can dream up.