Blizzos meat smoker

[BLIZZO]

During lockdown the wife I went down a rabbit hole of watching American barbeque shows, and man some of that stuff looked delicious. have been to a couple of bbq joints in NZ and def a fan of the old low and slow so thought id ignore all the sensible advice of starting with a weber kettle and go straight to a wood hungry offset.

I had a look at some of the "decent" off the shelf options such as the prime smoke XL and Oklahoma Joe highlander but they are still made with poo thin 2.5mm mild steel and have lots of design flaws that would require modifications to get to a decent spec anyway. Since they are so damn basic I thought id make one myself. I called into an engineers workshop that we use a lot a work and asked if he had any old steel tanks lying around, he conveniently had one pretty much the exact size I was after so a box of export and it was mine. I wanted at least 6mm ideally around 10mm. this thing was so bloody heavy I struggle to lift it on its end so much be reasonably thick and has some sweet patina.

Before I jumped into the work i jumped on the smoking meat forum and asked a few gurus. i wanted to go traditional flow (opposed to reverse flow) to keep it OG. Used some updated and verified calculations for things like stack size, height, firebox size, cook chamber to firebox opening etc. Then about a week ago I started annoying my neighbors, and my poor angle grinder.

I picked up a 20" length of 16" 10mm wall steel pipe for $30 which was idea, its the same diameter as the cook chamber so perfect for the firebox. Took a bit of fiddling to get it measured square but it worked out all good.

then there was starting to hack the hole in the cook chamber to where the firebox meets up. this explains why it was so heavy, it should retain heat well, 14mm thick!

I made a jig for some legs and got them cutout and welded on as well as some castors on the stack end. 

The firebox end is going to get these vintage cast wagon wheels that are about 300mm in diameter.

Yesterday I marked out the door and started cutting that. now I need to get some DXF files drawn up for the firebox door, hinges and handles then get those on before I do too much else.

excited to spend some weekends drinking beer watching this thing burn away!

[oldrx7]

ohhh yes - good work, that thing will hold the heat really well!  Gotta start stacking that firewood now too so it's ready for action.

[BLIZZO]

6 hours ago, oldrx7 said:

ohhh yes - good work, that thing will hold the heat really well!  Gotta start stacking that firewood now too so it's ready for action.

Yea I picked up over 2 m2 of well seasoned plum a week ago so have that stacked away for a start. will start cutting some manuka from sources I have though work to add to the pile.

[HighLUX]

Welcome down the rabbit hole

Looking forward to seeing the end result of the build both the offset and the food

[CaMpylobacter]

Shit yeah gimme a piece of dang brisket