I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of just buying stuff. Stuff is rarely made to the quality I hope for, it's generally more than I want to pay, and I spend hours researching the 'best this for that', come across a ton of spammy review sites, and THEN, when I buy the product, I end up bitchin' about how crappy it is. Meh!
Maybe it's just the DIY, self-reliant streak that many of us homesteaders have, which is what took us on this journey.
I love to barbecue, I'm pretty good at it too, or so my wife tells me. But smoking was something that really 'tickled my fancy', and I knew I had to get into it. Electric smokers, offset smokers, hours spent researching. I wanted to smoke brisket actually, but didn't want to pay!
Then I found a cool video with thousands of view and great comments. This peaked my interest and I decided I'd have a crack and learn how to to build an ugly drum 55 gallon vertical smoker (UDS) from a 55 gallon steel barrel.
I did it, with pretty average skills and equipment, and I wanted to share the process with you (unless you're keen to go shell out a couple of hundred bucks on an off the shelf smoker or a 30 gallon drum smoker kit like this one (which looks freakin' incredible). If your are then this article might help with your buying process.
If not, hand around and I'll provide you with some cool instructions and a shopping guide for some of the odds and sods you will need. All the parts can be purchased from any half average hardware store or picked up online,
You can deffo build a great UDS smoker with these 55 gallon drum smoker plans, and save yourself a ton of cash.
Check out this DIY ugly drum smoker video first, to show you what is possible.
