Ugly Drum Smoker

Memorial Day weekend activities included building an Ugly Drum Smoker.  This project started with my friend, Ann, telling me she wanted to buy a Big Green Egg for the farm.  They are very nice but run upwards of $1000 and I don't have the occasion to smoke large pieces of meat by my lonesome.  (And I can think of a lot more kitchen things I could buy with $1000.)

So, I said...

"If you could find a 55 gallon drum, I could make a smoker for under $100."

About a 1/2 hour latter, Ann called to say she was picking up the 55 gallon drum that afternoon, so I had to make good on my promise.

There are about a million sets of instructions for building UDS's on the web and they are pretty much all the same yet different.  And some of these guys (the vast majority are guys but some are ingenious girls like Cowgirl's County Life) have more tools than I have books, so they invest big $$$ into them.

My ambition was to make a smoker for cheap... if I wanted to spend $1000, I would have bought one.

Over the next few weeks, I assembled parts from my garage, the hardware store, the feed store and Ann sent a fancy thermometer and a step bit from Amazon.

 I cannibalised an old Weber grill for a cover and the grates.  I built a fire basket with the small grate.

The step drill worked out fine.

I tested the smoker with a pork butt.

After 8 hours at 225 it was quite nice.

Of course, I failed to calibrate the expensive thermometer, so I had to remove it and calibrate it.  The next day, I smoked ribs.  After the initial test firing,  I had better control over how to keep the temperature constant.  It held right at 250 for a full 10 hours without any help from me.   (But the ribs only cooked for 5 hours!) 

I will not add another set of instructions, but if you have questions, feel free to ask.

UPDATE:  Ann asked if I wrote this in the dark?  It seems she felt there were misspellings and misplaced "commas" and general poor syntax.   Spell check doesn't like the way I spelled "cannibalised"  but it appears to be fine. 

Wet and Wild Cheerwine Rub

Wet and Wild Cheerwine Rubbed Chicken and Braised Lettuce

Southerners have a particular penchant for cooking with coke, the generic carbonated drink nomenclature used in the vast majority of the South. It's all coke. While my knowledge of this fact is anecdotal there is hard evidence presented in the Journal of English Linguistics #24, 1996. Luanne von Schneidemesser, PhD and senior editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English wrote of this linguistic anomaly in her article, Soda or Pop?. The following map illustrated her research.




In the United States, we (and by "we" I mean every man, woman and child) drink on average 43 gallons of various carbonated elixirs per year. In the South, a quart or two of that soft drink average makes its way into our cooking. Perhaps it is because we always have some coke left over after we mix the hard drinks. Whatever the reason, we love to soak ham in Coca-Cola and put root beer in cake.

Southerner's also have an abiding love of regional carbonated soft drinks. RC and Moon Pies comes to mind. A particular favorite of mine is Cheerwine. Since 1917, Cheerwine has been produced in North Carolina. Though it often pops up in other places, it is well worth a trip to North Carolina. They are also fond of barbecue in North Carolina. This recipes gives you the best of both.

Wet and Wild Cheerwine Rub

4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
3 cloves
1 cup Cheerwine
2 tablespoons Sriracha
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil

In a spice grinder or molcajete, grind the coriander, cumin, pepper, fennel, cloves until cracked.

Add the garlic to the spices and blend until coarsely chopped.

In a bowl add the seed and garlic mixture and stir in the brown sugar, Sriracha, olive oil and Cheerwine and blend to a thick paste.

Rub on your favorite barbecue item and let sit for at least an hour or, at best, overnight.