I love when a plan comes together!

Nothin's prettier than workin art.

Pork butt-when that sweet fat melts it'll baste the Turkey underneath it. Pork fat rules! 

These cans are full of the apple cider I marinaded the meat in for over a week. They're surrounded by hickory chips that have been soaked in water. When it cooks the cider turns to steam and mixes with the smoke keeping the meat nice and moist. Can you imagine what this will taste like? I will in about an hour!

Staying right around 200 degrees, just enough to slowly melt the pork fat and make the turkey melt in your mouth. MMMMMMM~

Is there anything more beautiful than that sight and smell in the morning?

A beautiful bird

Boneless Pork butt covered in Gentle Special, drip, drip, drip~

5 Chili Salsa right out of the garden with a mango and a couple huge avocados. I see tacos in my future. Wish you were here~

Ta-Da! ok cool cats, I finished the paint & detail yesterday so scroll on down and take a look at the finished product!

I looked all over trying to find "stove handles" without luck,  to keep the handles from getting so hot you couldn't grab them without mitts on so I finally decided to just make them out of some stainless steel tubing I had.

Here's how they turned out. I also extended the mounting brackets to accommodate your fingers. They have a really nice feel and work great.

This old nursery shelf and busted shopping cart made a pretty nice heat shield and handy shelf for maybe a big pot of BBQ sauce???

Let me know what you think of the art work? It has a dual purpose. It's also the heat shield for this side.

These drag bars are perfect for rolling the unit around. I still need to find a pair of grips. Anyone got an old pair?

I didn't add a mount for the propane tank because it will actually fit inside one of the drawers. It makes a smaller profile that way and saves some space for something else. (hopefully just as useful)

I put the thermostat at the top of the top drawer because this is the hottest place and easiest to read. Once the whole thing is heated up to around 225-250 for wet smoking you don't have to do anything but check on the wood chips and liquid periodically and replenish when needed. The hard part is waiting for it while you can smell it cooking! I hope you like it. This was a lot of fun and a little challenging at times. I can't wait to put it to use, and on to the next one!

Hi again all you hungry hombres`! This is me in front of my next project. So- back to the wet smoker.

It took me a while to find the material I wanted, but after careful investigation of the back of several big box stores I managed to liberate some discarded shelves and a smashed shopping cart. 

Made a "grate" heat shield and work surface

 Igniters are pretty finicky so I covered all the ignition wires with shrink tubing to help prevent arcing, and with 50,000 volts it ain't easy! Next it was covered again with a heat resistant wire loom. 

Wires and copper lines go through small channel.

This is fitting the burner and igniter under the bottom drawer.

I test drove the system before final assembly to make sure the burner, igniter and control would have enough volume to generate enough heat through the bottom drawer and still be able to burn the hickory chips and gently boil the liquid to create steam.

As it turned out I needed to increase the jet size to achieve between 250 & 300 degrees. 

I couldn't decide where to put the controls so I ended up making this little dash board and putting them where they made the most sense at eye level.

I really wanted the thermostat on the dash but none have flexible probes unless I used an electronic one so I just put it in the top drawer to get the most accurate information. The top of the wet smoker is the hottest area and closer to the bottom is the cooler area.

This is how it works in miniature just for test driving purposes! Ha, The wet chips go on the bottom and the liquid goes on top. As the wood heats up and smokes the liquid just barely boils releasing steam from whatever you put in it (like apple cider) MMMMM---

This is it's profile how it looks before painting.

I think I'll cook some swordfish on it tonight for my dinner, then I have to take it all apart tomorrow (or next week) and start on the paint. 

Here it is in action! Yum, Yum, Yum I can't hardly wait! See ya soon, Adios~JG

I added some reinforcement steel to support the handle bars.

First I had mounted the bars at the top of the cabinet but I'm tall and I thought it would be better served if I lowered them to a more reasonable height so I added this piece of sheet metal to give it plenty of support.

Here I tig welded the corners to stiffen the cabinet.

I used rivets on all the sheet metal for a strong long life of service, Yum!

The cabinet may get pretty hot  so, I wanted to create some kind of heat shield, and add a touch of aesthetics to give it a little character. I made these spider webs from the file racks and spot welded them in place with the wire feed mig welder.  

webs are done, for now next the burner and controls then to paint!

OK Guys & Dolls, here's the latest on the wet smoker

Here's an old pair of drag bars from my Panhead with a simple black riser and two sets of solo seat springs. I'm gonna add the bars to the top back so it will be easy to move around and use the springs for the drawer handles like a wood stove. They'll act like a heat sink and keep the handles from getting "too hot to handle"! Ha, ha~

This is what the drawers look like after I cut out the bottoms so the smoke can travel all the way through the cabinet.

Notice the perfectly fitting wire grates I received in the mail all the way from Canada from Pauline compliments to her Mother!
Thank you both for such a nice gift and for allowing me to recycle some of your old stove. Don't you wish the rest of the world could get along and do something as simple and productive as we just did?

I had an old walker left over from when I had my hip replaced a few years ago and thought it could make a good contribution to this project. Here you can see that I mounted the wheels in back giving the cabinet a couple inches of ground clearance that I'll need later for circulation when I install the Gas burner.

simple 1/4"axle for walker wheels.

These are the front legs of the walker. I measured the necessary length and used a tubing cutter to cut them perfectly square.

I used a large uni-bit to drill out the cabinet bottom then slid the legs through and secured them with tech screws inside to both sides of the cabinet so the screws wouldn't be visible and creates a really strong leg and helps keep the cabinet stable for a long time

This is how she looks so far. Nice and stable and rolls around great!

Wet Smoker file cabinet

When I disassembled the file cabinet I discovered that the drawer bearings were plastic.

I tested the plastic bearings in my commercial oven and discovered they would only withstand less than 300 degrees F before melting so, I removed all the plastic components from inside the cabinet.

 I drilled out the old rivets that held all 32 plastic bearings and removed them.

Then replaced the old plastic bearings with new steel rivets acting as an axle and steel washers becoming the new drawer bearings.

New steel drawer bearing made from simple 3/16 X 5/16 steel rivet and 3/16 X 1" steel fender washers.

Completed heat resistant chassis for drawers

Finished cabinet with new steel heat resistant bearings that works fantastic! Ready for the next step of conversion to wet smoker- stay tuned!