Anyone built their own smoker?

I can fit close to 25#s in my Pitt boss vertical smoker. Don't have to babysit a fire with it.

I built mine a few years back and used treated wood for the framing and the entire inside was completely covered using 1/2 inch Hardie Backer Board that is used for underlayment for tile flooring.

It is big enough for me to smoke 6 large pork butts on 3 wire shelves inside the smoke box. I can either hot or cold smoke depending on how I want to use it. Cold for smoking salmon or cheese and from there I can keep it around 250 for things like smoking turkeys, pork butts, briskets, etc.

Also, depending on how I set up my coals, I can keep it in the 160 to 180 range for things like beef jerky, pork belly for bacon, andouille etc.


I do use one of those stainless steel mazes that lets me use pellets and that will normally last as long as 5 hours before needing to be reloaded.

It has steel casters on all 4 corners to make moving it around very easy.

It's pretty much my go-to for smoking but I also have one of those upright bullet type with 2 grates, a coal pan and a water pan and an electric Masterbuilt smoker with 4 wire shelves that gets used the least.

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Do you have any pictures of it? I was thinking building an outhouse looking upright smoker with castors so I can move it around like you mentioned

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No pics. I own a flip phone and don't have a digital camera AND, I've never ever posted a pic on the net to date--------------Yeah, I'm that guy.........


Rough measurements from memory are just over 6 ft. tall, 30 inches wide, 18 inches deep. The actual smoke chamber is almost 2 ft. up from the ground and it is open underneath with a shelf to store the hooks I use for smoking bacon, the pan for coals and other utensils

The only wood inside the smoke chamber are six 1 x 1 cypress rails for the 3 wire racks to rest on and I glued up a few 1 x 6 x 1 in. cypress boards to make the door and that is where my temperature gauge is installed.

I don't think the whole thing cost me $100 to build and I've been using it for a few years now with great results.

We mainly cold smoked things in Alaska and just used tin. It was usually tin salvaged from old buildings so nail holes didn’t matter.

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Sounds exactly like what I’m trying to build. I don’t have the greatest carpentry skills. I have a good bit of scrap cedar boards laying around. I’ll just make a box frame and go from there

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In my opinion, the more redneck engineered a smoker looks, the better the meat that comes out of it. You're not building cabinetry or doing crown moulding, just wing it and post up some pics when done.

That's nice!

I'm not saying it's going to catch on fire, but if it does, get pics!!!

I watched a guy make a cheap one out of 2 flower pots, a rack and a heating element.

He had maybe 25.00 into it.

It was cool.

i would definitely put some metal flashing on the inside around 1/4 to 1/2 way up to protect from it catching on fire.