Weber Smoker

Old Mr Weber starts smoking

After a quarter-century of round-the-year service,

Weber was about to resign due to weak legs.

As my equally old Abu-smoker started leaking

at the same time as Weber lost his legs,

I decided to give Weber a chance to take over,

as his top was intact.

I found some threaded rods in my workshop, to be mounted along

the perimeter of an old copper cooking pot from a flea-market,

large enough to cover all the holes in the bottom of the grill.

I drilled some undersized holes in a piece of scrap and screwed them into it.

As the pot has a flange some distance from the bottom,

it rests quite stable on the rods and is easily removed to empty the ashes.

From an old apple tree, I removed a dry branch and cut to straight pieces.

Then I screwed a handle to one of them to be able to shred it safely on my jointer.

I filled chips from a quarter of a log in the pot and then etanol in a smaller pot beneath as a burner.

The old grill was then positioned on the cooking-pot,

and so the grate with the salted salmon I had prepared.

With the lid in place and the vent open, time to light the burner.

Smoking continued long after the burner was empty, and due to the lower temperature

the salmon was much smoother than in the Abu-smoker, and more delicious.

Weber has now earned a permanent position as successor to Abu,

and will not be retired for years.

As the test was satisfactory, the base was substituted to concrete to last some years.

I'm happy to have a smoker that stays outside.

My old Abu has served me well, but the soot has been a nuisance in the kitchen.

Now that problem is solved with a reclaimed grill.

To expand the functionality into daylong smoking,

I built a simple fireplace from reclaimed bricks and topped it

with an octagonal chimney to receive the Weber top.

This is however too recent to test for a while.

My intention is to cover the front during smoking with a piece

of mineral wool in the beginning, and perhaps make steel doors later.

There is probably some mason who can make it a lot nicer,

but I think it will work fine.

Now I can choose between the chips-pot or the fireplace

depending on the size of meat to be smoked.

And it cost me nothing but labour.