I think Austin or @ Jonothan would be the ones to ask as they deal with commercial processors
Homemade Smokehouse
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akdave thanks I will look into that. I hope it’s big enough its 60,000 BTU’s. And yes I plan to insulate.
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Great, hope my thoughts will help you, my homemade smoker is about 6’ tall, but my bottom section where my burner is about 2’ way too much wasted space just for burner, but in 1986 when I found the stainless steel shell that was the way it was built. I found the shell in the dump on Adak ,Alaska where I was stationed with my family and the Navy SeaBees in stalled a electric heating element and a thermostat for me and it holds 12 full size oven racks, I have made many modifications during the years adding a fan to bring in outside air for making cold smoked salmon, installing 2 convection fans from old gas ranges for more even temperature, installing drip trays to keep the grease from draining down on the burner box, getting a smoking deal on 10 stainless steel grated smoker racks, adding a shelf above the burner to hold a water pan for extra Humidity, converting it to natural gas to cut down on my electric bill and give me the extra heat to do briskets, pork butts, turkeys, and prime rib and finally modifying my Man Cave to accommodate my smoker indoors with a Exhaust hood and fan to make it easier and more pleasant on bad weather days. Lots has happened in 34 years.
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akdave That’s a sweet set up. Bet there are a lot of memories that go with it from the food it’s made to the people you have shared it with
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akdave Here is another picture of the burner after some modifications. Bottom shelf for chip pan to sit on and top shelf for water pan. Fully adjustable
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Have you looked at the a-mazen-n smoke tubes, they eliminate the need for a chip tray, and they are way cheaper than chips and take up way less space and could even be in a separate attachment as they do not need heat, ounce you light them they burn on there own. I will get you a picture and model of a gas valve and standing pilot and it will make your set up much more safe.
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Sure would think that would heat a 5×6×3 as long as there’s no major air leaks, would definitely run a thermocouple!
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akdave no I haven’t looked into those tubes. I have an actual pan for the chips, we just put that piece of wood on there to see if it was close enough to make it smoke
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akdave as part of this build I am trying to scavenge as much of the materials as I can. Where would I want to look for such a controller. Maybe in an old gas range or something like that.
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Are you enclosing the bottom portion of the smoker where your burner is at?
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s.a.m I am still working out the details on that. I would like to enclose the burner but I’m not sure how to go about it. I am thinking about putting in brackets in about 30" up from the bottom running the length of it that I can use to hold sheet pans as drip pans and that would sort of section it off.
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Brian Schneider just was looking at the burner you’ll need the inlet outside the box so it gets fresh air
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do you have a friend that is a heating guy that can help you with the gas valve and pilot assemble, the propane gas valve is only $80-90 on the internet for a new one and using a used one is not a good Idea… for $30.00 you can get a complete brand new pilot light assembly and then all u need is a 24 volt transformer and a thermostat to have a safe reliable unit with temperature control.
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akdave ok thanks I sure do have a friend that fits that description.
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Brian Schneider Here’s our smoker that we built for deer camp last year. This was our maiden run. It’s an old walk-in insulated cooler unit. No fan was needed. There’s an air intake on the bottom and the two vents on top are manual damper controlled. It smoked our jerky sticks and summer sausage amazingly consistent. The thermostatically controlled heat is a must though. also I think you’re going to find that tray on the bottom will be your smoke pan. That’s basically what ours is.
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Snake River Smokers very nice. Mine will be very similar to that except I will be framing mine out of wood. Sheeting the bottom 3’ with sheetmetal on the inside and siding the outside with rough sawed lumber to match the rest of my out buildings.
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Brian Schneider Not sure what you’re doing for the shelving in there but after going back and forth, we decided to use the shelf tracking and brackets from Menards or any hardware store for that matter. It worked good because you can adjust the height and add more shelves if you would want to. Then we cut the shelves out of one inch square grid steel which is split to fit each side. It was easy to get the racks out of the door when the jerky is done. Then for hanging sausage we just put a 2x4 on each side which then we set 2x2’s with hooks to hang the summer sausage off of which worked really well.
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Snake River Smokers I like the way you did the shelving. I will probably do the same. Thanks for sharing. I will post some pics when we get done building for sure.
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Thanks for the info. I will look into these.
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