Birth of "Big RC" - Joe's Trailerable BBQ Kitchen

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:40 pm

Joe, that thing is a monster cooker. Can't wait to see smoke coming out of it. And some meat cooking in it.

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:57 pm

Thats a cooker and a half all right. A hundred pounds of butts would get lost in there. Real nice welding btw

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:53 am

Thanks Guys. Hope to get more done this week on the front of the cooker.

J

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 12:30 pm

Insulation in and inner steel on back wall of cooking chamber is now complete. Still need to weld the inner steel panels on the side walls. You can see how they have just the outer wall and the insulation in place on the side.

Closer view of back wall and side wall.

The outside of the back wall with the exhaust elbows in place. Chrome stacks?...

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:42 am

Added the sloped floor and 2" drain. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of slope on the floor to help prevent a grease fire. Grease and whatever liquids I might use to baste with will drain to the front right corner into a 2" drain. The 14 gauge sheet is thin enough that we were able to get it to slope both from the left to the right and also from back to front. There will be another plate that goes across the front and the door will be up a few inches so I won't have to worry about grease draining out of the door.

J

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:46 pm

Tons of finish work on the inside of the cooking chambers that isn't very apparent but takes a long time.

Have the right side door on for the cooking chamber.

2 thermometers mounted in the door. They're the big 3" diameter dials. I'll be interested in how I'm able to control the temps from top to bottom.
In the first pic, I have the coke can inside the cooking chamber so you can get an idea of the scale.

The doors are double wall 14 gauge steel with 2" of 1200 degree mineral wool insulation. I'm thinking this thing will really hold some heat.

In the pic below you can see the coke can for scale

You can see how we put a pipe on the inside of the door to protect the thermometer probe from getting knocked around.

Doors (like the rest of the cooker) are 14 gauge double walled with 2" of 1200 degree mineral wool insulation in between. I'm hoping it holds the heat well.

Hope to have the left side door done soon. Then the latches.

J

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:13 pm

Getting there, one step at a time. Smoke this weekend?

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:32 pm

smokinJim wrote:

Getting there, one step at a time. Smoke this weekend?

Thanks Jim. No, firebox not ready yet. Some "work" there. Hopefully will have pics to show soon.

J

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:22 pm

OK. Firebox ready to go.

I love the old school brick pits. One of the things I've always hated on my OK Joe offset with the 1/4 firebox is the heat fluctuations. Wind and cold would always play havoc in trying to keep the temps level. (yeah, I know it's Tennessee and we don't know REAL wind and cold but we get some cold blustery days) The brick pits are great for that as they're a huge heat sink and insulate well. But they're not real convenient for trailering around...

So I wanted to get as close as I could to that on the firebox.

We took the firebox and added 1" of FBX 1900 insulation http://www.industrialinsulation.com/1900_board.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; right up against the metal. Then a layer of firebrick. The ceiling, door, and floor were all a castable refractory which is essentially a firebrick that you can form to the shape you want. You weld anchor hooks into the wall and then pour the refractory in. It takes a few days to set up. The door was a little tricky as we had to allow for the cutouts for the air vents.

But bottom line is I think we have the firebox about as efficient as possible. I expect it'll take it a while to get up to temp. But once there, I'm thinking I'll be able to hold my temps much more consistently. At least that's the plan.

My biggest worry on the castable refractory was durability and standing up to trailering. The guys that helped me with this have been doing it forever and they feel certain I'll be ok there. The worst thing that could happen is that I start to have chips / cracks and I have to remove it. That wouldn't be the end of the world.

Hope to have the firebox welded up to the cooking chambers by the end of Friday.

J

Inside of door before doing anything

Inside of door with castable refractory

Outside of door with castable refractory

Firebox with firebrick

Right rear corner of firebox

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:29 pm

That sure is one serious looking fire box Joe. As long as it hold together while traveling, I am sure your fuel consumption will really surprise you and heat retention should be great. Good job. I guess short of building with the bricks and cement, you could have made it an insulated firebox with just the high temp insulation. Probably would have been just as efficient, without the added weight.

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:15 pm

smokinJim wrote:

That sure is one serious looking fire box Joe. As long as it hold together while traveling, I am sure your fuel consumption will really surprise you and heat retention should be great. Good job. I guess short of building with the bricks and cement, you could have made it an insulated firebox with just the high temp insulation. Probably would have been just as efficient, without the added weight.

Hi Jim,

Yes, building it as a double wall with hi temp insulation was my first thought.

But as I talked to the guys that do the furnaces for my friend that has the business recycling precious metals was that he felt the heat sink properties of the firebrick was really a big advantage. I do think it'll help level out temps. We'll see.

J

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:07 pm

Making a little progress.

Framed up the charcoal grill that will go on the other end of the trailer opposite the smoker. Also put in the vertical posts at the grill end and tied them to the top of the smoker with the horizontal tubes. Will eventually make roof with likely some foldaway awning type pieces that will extend out from the side.

Charcoal Grill on the right side in this pic

Another pic showing framing

Backside of Charcoal grill

J

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:16 pm

Work inside the cooking chambers.

For controlling the heat / smoke from the firebox into the cooking chamber, I looked at doing a butterfly valve damper. But decided to go with a damper on top of the inlet as it comes into the firebox. This was just a little easier to fabricate. Steve Bates had shown me a pit like this he did and he liked how it worked. There will be a diffuser plate that goes over this damper.

Sorry about the quality, the reflection was playing havoc with my camera

The other damper is for the exhaust going out of the cooking chamber. Went a little unconventional here. Because I want to go with chrome stacks with the curved tips, I couldn't do the normal chimney cap type damper. Decided to do a sliding damper on the inside of the cooking chamber. Pretty much like the air vent control on the firebox except no holes. I put a bolt in it so I can tighten it down to where I want it once I get things tuned in.

It'll be a little inconvenient having to reach past the food to change the damper if I have to but I felt that was worth the trade for having the chrome stacks. We could have likely figured a way to put a butterfly damper in the stacks but they're so high up it would have been inconvenient. I think this will be fine. I'll just use the fireplace poker to reach through and move them if I need to. I don't expect to have to be doing too much exhaust damper adjusting. But we'll see.

Inside of cooking chamber with exhaust damper open

Inside of cooking chamber with exhaust damper 1/2 open

Inside of cooking chamber

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:31 pm

Last thing for this week.

The doors to the cooking chamber are huge. They're 45" tall and I've been struggling with how to make the latches to close them. Had planned on doing two of the normal latches like everyone uses. Like I used on my firebox. But wasn't really happy with that. Two latches are a little awkward. But figured it out. Found a cam lock latch like they use on the back of tractor trailers.

There are brackets and mounts that are mounted to the cooker (not the door) at the top and bottom. Then there is a pipe that runs vertically on the door that has cam type pieces at the top and bottom that go into the brackets mounted on the cooker. They go in and then the pipe is rotated by turning the handle and the cam action draws it down tight. Super smooth. And it's just one handle.

We just tacked it up there for a trial fit and it worked perfectly. It's ugly in the pics. We'll weld it all and paint it to make it look factory. That was one thing I was struggling with and it is good to know that one is handled.

J

Here is a pic of the heat diffuser plate. This is one of the things I think I may likely have to come back and tweak once I cook on it a few times. But that will be easy as it's just a 1/4 plate with legs welded on. Changing that is no sweat.

And here is a slightly better pic of the inlet coming into the cooking chamber from the firebox and the damper.

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:53 pm

Can you also cook? Very Happy