Oil Drum Handicraft

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

With the help of these supplies—and a little ingenuity—you can turn old fuel containers into a multitude of useful objects. The following are just a few of the possibilities.

DRUM SMOKER

Some of the best smoked fish I've ever eaten came from a smoker I fabricated from a 55-gallon drum. My improvised smokehouse isn't so large that it takes a lot of work to make or operate, but is big enough to produce a good supply of cured meat.

If you'd like to make one of these home smokers, begin by cutting the top out of a drum with a cold chisel and hammer. This job won't wear you out so quickly if you first pierce the inside rim of the barrel by cutting straight down. Then hold the tool at a 45-degree angle and work around the lid from the first cut. Clean the inside of the container after the end has been removed.

Next make the smoker's base: a sheet of plywood that's an inch and a quarter thick, about three feet square and has a six-inch hole in the center. This board can stand on legs like a table, or it can be partly sunk into a hillside (my own preference . . . good old Mother Earth seems to add a little extra flavor to the fish).

If you, too, favor my method, dig a level notch in the hill as wide as the plywood square and far enough into the slope that the hole in the base's center rests on earth. About four feet downhill cut a similar niche in which a Blazo can will fit horizontally and end first. Then scoop out a four-inch-square groove in the ground from the rear of the lower ledge up to the opening in the smoker's foundation. You can line the bottom of this trough with one continuous length of eighteen-inch-wide aluminum foil and roof the tunnel in the same way. Mud can be used to hold down the deges of the foil and seal in the smoke.

Now for the firebox. Cut the top out of a Blazo tin and hinge it back in place to serve as a door. In the bottom of the can open a five-inch square on three of its sides. Bend the flap back and set the box—on its side—in the earth, so that smoke will flow into the groove when you fire her up.

Your final construction job is a fish rack that stands inside the inverted drum. Make the framework from whatever comes handy and fit it out with three or four wire shelves small enough to fit inside the barrel (I used about 25 feet of one- by two-inch wood).

To operate your finished smoker, load the shelves in the upper chamber and make a smoky fire in the Blazo can. Avoid very resinous woods that produce an unpleasant flavor. If you feed the blaze with chips, dampen them slightly to make more fumes. You'll need to experiment with curing times and temperatures until you get the results you like . . . check the meat every day or so and sneak a bite to see how the taste is coming. Or, if you really want to become an expert, pick up a book on smoking.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print