Kilo Charlie's Creations and BS

Not I. The surrounding metal would be grinded to about 1/16" if it were me.

@Misplaced Nebraskan is the hole-saw extraordinaire.

 

I better keep my mouth shut about welding skills.. I have none.. but that's not going to stop me!

 

You do not need a loader unless ya just want to spend the extra money! Dam good cooking hog weighs 150 or less. If your cooking a whole hog you can flip it by yourself.
ok I’m outta here

 

Haha I wanna see his idea ... And what do you mean you're outta here @Bigdaddy4760 ? You mean prepping for the weekend at your place or you don't wanna share more ideas?

 

So.. I need some help with math.

The Pellet Pro (shown below) produces 36K BTUs and based on the size of the tank (275 gallons?) I'm wondering if adding 2 of these will be enough to sufficiently heat the tank enough to be able to smoke/cook things? I'd like to be able to get to the 400-450F range. I realize that there a ton of variables involved in this and there's not a standard formula for figuring these things out, but any insight would be appreciated. I's rather not invest the time/money if it's not going to get me the desired results.




https://smokedaddyinc.com/product/new-pellet-pro-patriot-pellet-hopper-assembly-made-in-the-u-s-a/

 

You would be talking over $1000 for two of them. You would most likely make it to the temp you want but I’m not sure how it would be for holding temp or how much it would burn.

 

Yes, I am aware of the price... and the extra money for the connecting cable to connect the two to be controlled by one controller. I too am not sure about if it would maintain.

There's very little information I can find online of people who've actually done this. BUT.. if it works.. having a pellet whole hog roaster than can be converted to a pellet smoker by removing the rotisserie and replacing it with a full sized expanded metal grate wold e amazing AF.

I'm likely in the wrong forum to get these questions answered

 

You would have to likely try one of the large smoker forums.

I can tell you that you can run a large cabinet style smoker on pellets and it will run well. All the reading and research I’ve done for me building one tells me it works well. There are also huge commercial pellet smokers.

NOW the main difference is that my design is double wall insulated so that helps a lot with maintaining the temp once you get there. I have no doubt that even a single one would eventually get that roaster up to 400-450 but how long is the question.

 

My Pit Boss 5 is larger than most, is double walled and it maintains a constant temp per the oven thermometer that's inside of it though out the cooks but I haven't found the data on what the BTUs of the Pit Boss burners put out.

Hell I have a barrel type Pit Boss smoker that is still in the box.. If I thought that would work I would buy another one of those and take the burners out of those and use it in this project and save a TON of money! Obviously they wouldn't be connected together but it would be like having a two burner grill and able to adjust accordingly.

 

So the way to see if it works is put a single one in there close it up and see how long it takes to come to temp with a single in there.

 

I guess I would like to have a little more information before I cut more holes in the tank or tear apart a perfectly good grill.

I posted on SMF and so far have only gotten one person that replied .. twice.. first one was telling me they wouldn't spend that money on a tank and the second one telling me to put a propane burner in there.. neither reply answered my questions.

I honestly thought forums were THE place to ask questions and learn new things.

 

They are but if it’s not been done before there isn’t going to be much information. Even if you cut it out and it doesn’t work you can always weld the panel back in.

 

HAHA we've discussed my lack of a welder or welding skills... but I guess I will figure it out on my own like I usually do. It's frustrating though.. I know there are people out there smarter than me that could answer the questions.. I just don't know how to find them or keep the idiots from clogging up the threads to allow people to see/reply with real answers. (Talking about SMF not here.. haha)

 

So.. answers.. though not exactly what I wanted to hear LOL Per Dennis at Smoke Daddy Inc the Pellet Pro is good for 36K BTU which is good for 10 cubic feet. Based on my measurements (and unable to account for the oval shape) the tank is 41.46 Cubic Feet which sounds like I'd have to run 4 units to adequately heat the unit (barring all other factors such as wind, air flow, temp, humidity etc). Obviously the cubic feet would be less due to the oval shape of the tank, but still warrant 4 units total.




Also, per a fella at SMF, he advised 1 pound of charcoal briquettes = 9700 BTUs and his advice was to take 7.5 pound of charcoal (theoretically 72,750 BTUs - slightly over the same as two pellet Pro units) and see where the temp got to. While this is an excellent test (and cheap too) it may be a waste of time if I need now along the lines of 144,000 BTUs.

The good news is that in the future, for anyone building these things.. there are now some answers without having to jump though all the hoops I have.

 

Well I know the one you showed me will do the trick of getting it up to temp. In order to figure out how long you either need to know the volume of the entire pit then do the math from there based on the BTU from that specific setup.

What is the model of the one you have in the box? I can try to track down the BTUs from it also. Two of those would definitely get your temps up unless they are just insanely under powered.

My largest unknown is the thermal retention of the pit you have, it’s hard to say because of not knowing the metal thickness, how well it’s sealed and so on. I know the one I’ve been designing is based on double walls with insulation between the layers. I plan to have mine where I can close off the upper half when I’m doing small cooks in order to save on pellets since I’ll not need to heat the entire thing.

 

Classic Pit Boss = 20700 BTU So definitely under the Pellet Pro ... the other factor is how long the auger is. The pellet pro comes in 12" or 18" length .. 12" would be perfect for mounting on the back - 18" would be perfect for mounting on the ends or sides. Since I am not at home I can't measure it right now.. but I'll look at it and see.. I still haven't found a battery for my digital calipers despite the battery conversion chart I found but I can measure the metal thickness later too. As for calculating the volume .. I showed the measurements in my last post and using a gallon calculator I got 268.84 gallons.

 

Well the 20700 BTU PB heats the 1000 sq in PB Austin XL to over 450 degrees with no issues at all. So that works out to about 6.5 cu ft.

I think it will heat it up it’s just how long it will take it to heat up with a single.

 

I'm not opposed to running a double or even a triple.. I can probably find those grills on clearance soon and take out the parts I need for far less money that the pellet Pro units ... IF the auger section is long enough.. I'm not sure of the hopper measurements, but it would be a tight fit for 4 though LOL I scored an Austin XL for my neighbor lady 2 years ago on clearance for like $250

 

I got one for like $200 from one of those return/damage places. It had a dent in the top of the hopper/hopper lid that I knocked out. Outside of that it had never been touched. Everything was still wrapped up.

Check the length on the auger and install one and see what it does. If it’s not enough add a second one fro the PB. With the shape and build it’s hard to say exactly what it will do. Could work great right off the bat. I would plan on making a heat deflector though so you don’t get a hot spot right above the pot.

 

There is a heat shield in there already but I have some 1/8" stainless steel to make one similar to the one on the Pellet Pro website. Thanks for all the input today!