Pellet Fan

All Things Considered => General Discussion--Non food Related => Topic started by: yorkdude on February 17, 2018, 02:56:19 PM

Title: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 17, 2018, 02:56:19 PM
A tad bit more than one day but here is what me and my buddy came up with.
Still a work in progress but shows EXTREME promise. It is functional refrigerator wise and have spent more than a few hours tinkering. Not sure if you can see the vertical rotisserie but it was a real pain because once we fabbed all the stuff we clearly overloaded it. Bearing changes and smoke sticks are crazy good.
So last night he shows me his new pellet grill. He has had it a week and I can honestly say it looks like he has had it for a few years. Says it is "awfully easy" to maintain temps? I told him to clean it!
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: Free Mr. Tony on February 17, 2018, 03:28:44 PM
That looks awesome! Love vertical rotisserie cooking. My buddy has the exact same smokin Bros. Great cooker.
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: Bentley on February 17, 2018, 04:44:57 PM
So you 2 have converted the fridge into a pellet smoker with a vertical rotisserie that I am assuming rotates at the top wheel too? Or is just the shaft that rotates?  What controller do you use?
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: Bar-B-Lew on February 17, 2018, 05:24:27 PM
Make sure you get that grease out of there somehow so that it never ignites.  My brother turned a stand up warming box (oven) into a smoker once.  He used a propane burner with the wood box over top and a grease catch pan on top of it.  He forgot to empty the grease catch pan before starting a prime rib cook one day.  The whole thing went up in flames.  The metal was thin and the insulation in between the metal went up in flames quickly.  Not saying you guys don't know what you are doing because you are way above my skill set.  Just want to throw out some semi-personal experience with something similar.
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 17, 2018, 06:45:44 PM
That looks awesome! Love vertical rotisserie cooking. My buddy has the exact same smokin Bros. Great cooker.
Have not seen the "Smokin bros" in action but he loves it. The old Army reach through fridge, I almost feel like I stole. They told me the price, I paid them what they told me, $70.00. I was fairly confident I could make it work, they told me it just "hums". $12.00 bucks later for the start relay and bam. Stay tuned, this could either go straight south or be the maker of BIG smiles, I am thinking the latter. It has made experimentally some awfully good snack sticks, summer sausage. I darn sure don't have the recipes down but if' I do, pretty sure this will be the perfect compliment. Pretty excited about this, trying to mimic the Brazilian BBQ's. Yorkdude style.
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 17, 2018, 07:09:04 PM
So you 2 have converted the fridge into a pellet smoker with a vertical rotisserie that I am assuming rotates at the top wheel too? Or is just the shaft that rotates?  What controller do you use?
Yes, the top wheel is the "driving force" . I have spent more than a few hours trying to keep the shaft straight, loaded and literally 6' long. It was a challenge but we are getting there. Probably stupid (just ask my wife) but fun? Yep.
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: ylr on February 17, 2018, 07:09:40 PM
I'm a little slow on the uptake, but what you're saying is that you can run the fridge while the smoker and the rotisserie is running?  :o
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 17, 2018, 07:28:02 PM
Make sure you get that grease out of there somehow so that it never ignites.  My brother turned a stand up warming box (oven) into a smoker once.  He used a propane burner with the wood box over top and a grease catch pan on top of it.  He forgot to empty the grease catch pan before starting a prime rib cook one day.  The whole thing went up in flames.  The metal was thin and the insulation in between the metal went up in flames quickly.  Not saying you guys don't know what you are doing because you are way above my skill set.  Just want to throw out some semi-personal experience with something similar.
I get what you are saying and appreciate it. I have no idea what this rascal will do, however ultimately, reefer running with 1 or 2 of the pellet assemblies running, Salmon, cheese etc. Heck who knows!
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: Bentley on February 17, 2018, 07:51:04 PM
I was skipping down that road too, I was not sure.

I'm a little slow on the uptake, but what you're saying is that you can run the fridge while the smoker and the rotisserie is running?  :o
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: ylr on February 18, 2018, 09:28:09 AM
If the fridge is running, wouldn't that cause the pellet controller to try to raise the temp constantly?
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 18, 2018, 09:42:19 AM
It does but we are experimenting with that. We have just really started that part, first was building it. It just gets kind of expensive to experiment because of its size, probably won't do much with it in the spring summer as that's boat time but this fall, winter probably much more.
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: Bentley on February 18, 2018, 12:40:55 PM
I am even slower I guess...Why would you want a "hot" smoking device in an "active" refrigerator?
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: MP09 on February 18, 2018, 12:55:25 PM
I’m missing something. Refrigerator producing cold but with a heat source producing hot? Sorry you lost me or it’s so obvious it’s starring me in the face. Help me out...
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 18, 2018, 01:21:03 PM
We wanted a larger smoker to goof around with, it just turns out that this is what I found.
It was not working but is now, then we put the pellet units on it.
I was thinking just for kicks to try cold smoking for cheese etc.
We have not attempted with any fervor doing that yet but what the heck.
We have smoked quite a bit of snack sticks and summer sausage though, him and his sis raise about 100 cows and butcher several every year so that is just something to use some of the beef up.
The pellet units he found on the Internet, I can't remember the brand but will find out and let you know, very Traeger like though.
Just something to goof around with.
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: Bentley on February 18, 2018, 02:26:50 PM
Have you put any temperature probes in it to see what the chamber temps are on the low settings where the meat will hang?
Title: Re: Bored one day
Post by: yorkdude on February 18, 2018, 04:03:19 PM
Not yet, we kind of got ahead of ourselves doing this, had an idea and jumped in without any real plan and once we got it chugging we just started playing with the sticks and summer sausage etc. Now we are going to "slow" down and try and dial it in. So I went over there today to grab the carcasses, and here is how the assemblies came about. I did not want to say what they were. 1 Traeger he did not like and the 2nd one we bought , just to rob. I am going to try and use the legs for the new Davey Crocket and probably trip over the other stuff for a while then throw it away. I wanted GMG assemblies but he knows a guy that discounts Traeger.
Here they are.