Pictures of my first smoker build, a not so ugly Ugly Drum Smoker. This beauty, flows perfectly, holds between 235-250F for 12+ hours on a single back of charcoal. The intake is from a Big Green Egg smoker bought off of EBay. The exhausts are standard issue Autozone chrome tip exhausts, tack welded on the lid of the smoker. Modern cabinet handles and some miscellaneous hardware from Lowes, complete the build.

Spray painted it cherry red to go with the local collage team the University of New Mexico Lobos. Its sure to be a hit at his years tailgates.

I caught the smoker building bug and have already moved on to my next project, a fully insulated upright reverse flow steel smoker. I have about $1000 into it so far and its 80% complete. I hope to have it done here in the next month or so.

Spring can’t come fast enough.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNq4XdCuhD4

A close look at the very popular WSM 18″ smoker. In 2009 Weber introduced a 22″ inch model after customers called for a smoker with greater cooking capacirry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBcfJFOhZo8

After burning some spare ribs this weekend for valentine’s day, I decided that it was about time for a UDS upgrade. My current UDS (pictured above) have always stayed true to the “Ugly” in Ugly Drum Smoker. With lessons learned, I plan to build myself a NOT so ugly drum smoker that has some convenient features and luxuries the old drum didn’t have.
Goals:

• Look Good – I plan to go all out and make this thing stand out.
• Heat Shield – I always do big cooks in the UDS and without a top rack, grease flair ups will quickly turn the bottom of your ribs and turn them into shoe leather. I have an idea for a heat shield that will still allow the juices from the meat to vaporize in the fire and give me that distinctive BBQ flavor that I could never achieve in a offset pit.
• Working Area – I plan to add some sort of side table for ease of use.
• Fire Box – My past fire boxes have been lacking, this smoker will have a proper fire box with a ash pan for easy cleanup.

That is just the basics, check back in as I document my UDS build with pictures and possibly even some video.

I have been a big BBQ buff for many years now. Always on the lookout for the best tasting rack of ribs or the most delicious cut of brisket. I finally decided to step on the other side of the smoker and try cooking for a change.

After a ton of research, I came to the conclusion that a quality smoker would likely cost upward of $500.

I then found a video of Big Mista’s where he demonstrated cooking with a Ugly Drum Smoker (UDS). It sounded like the perfect solution, a quality smoker that I can put together for a relatively low cost.

I’ll go into the details of my UDS build in a later post. With about 90% of my UDS complete, I decided to cook up two whole chickens and a New Mexico green chile fatty this memorial day weekend.