Introduction
Ever daydream about smoking ribs on a custom-built smoker you made with your own hands? We have – and we decided to make that dream a reality by building our own drum smoker right in the backyard. Why build a DIY drum smoker? It’s budget-friendly, for one, but more importantly, it’s a fun project that gives you serious bragging rights. There’s nothing like saying “I built this” when friends marvel at your perfectly smoked brisket.
Choosing the Right Drum for your Barrel Smoker
The first (and most important) step is finding a safe barrel for your smoker. Always use a food-safe drum that has never held hazardous materials. Seriously. Avoid any barrel that contained chemicals or oil. Look for a 55-gallon steel drum that is food-grade – often used for ingredients like syrup, juice, or other foods. We found one that used to hold apple cider, and it even had a sweet apple aroma (a good sign it was used for food).
If possible, get a drum with a removable lid (an “open head” drum) to save yourself the trouble of cutting the top off. Check inside the barrel for any coating. Many food-grade drums have an epoxy liner (usually a reddish-brown interior paint) to prevent rust. You’ll need to remove that later, so a bare steel interior is ideal.
Jake’s Tip: Give the drum a good once-over for rust and dents. A little surface rust is no biggie (you can sand it off), but holes or heavy rust could leak smoke. And big dents might prevent a good seal. Start with the cleanest, sturdiest drum you can find to make your build easier.
Gathering Materials and Tools
Got your drum? Great – now gather the other materials and tools for the build. Having everything on hand will make the project go smoothly. Here’s what you’ll need:
Materials:
- 55-gallon steel drum (food-grade, cleaned out, lid included if possible).
- Cooking grate: A round grill grate about 22 inches in diameter (to fit inside the drum).
- Charcoal basket: We’ll DIY one from expanded metal, or you can use any metal basket that fits in the drum.
- Hardware: Four bolts with nuts (around 2 inches long) to hold up the cooking grate, plus a few smaller bolts/nuts for attaching vent parts.
- Air vents: Three 3/4-inch steel pipe nipples and matching caps (these will become your adjustable air intakes).
- High-heat paint (optional): For painting the drum’s exterior to prevent rust.
- Thermometer (optional): A simple grill thermometer or digital probe to monitor temperature.
Tools:
- Drill with metal bits (a step-bit is very helpful for drilling larger holes in the drum).
- Marker and tape measure (for marking where to drill).
- Wrench and pliers (for tightening all those nuts and bolts).
- Metal file or sandpaper (to smooth edges and sand off any interior residue).
- Safety gear: Work gloves, safety glasses, and a dust mask (especially for when you burn or sand the drum).
- Angle grinder or jigsaw (optional): Only needed if you have to cut out the drum lid or stubbornly remove a liner.
Prepping the Drum
Before drilling or assembling anything, you need to prep the drum itself. That means cleaning it and removing any paint or liner so it’s safe for cooking.
Start by scrubbing the inside of the drum with hot, soapy water. Even if it was a food-grade barrel, give it a good cleaning. Rinse it out and let it dry. If you see a liner coating inside (common in barrels that carried food), you’ll have to get rid of it. The quickest way is to do a burn-out: place some scrap wood or charcoal in the drum, light it up, and let it blaze for an hour or two. (We set a big wood fire inside our drum – Jake was more than happy to play fire marshal for this part!) The high heat will incinerate that liner and any paint or residue inside. After the fire burns out and the drum cools down, put on your dust mask and grab a wire brush or sandpaper. Scrub the interior until you see bare, shiny metal. It’s dirty work, but this step ensures you’re cooking on clean steel with no weird chemicals lingering.
If you can’t do a full burn-out, you can also remove the liner by grinding and sanding. It takes more elbow grease, but make sure you get the interior down to bare metal. This is critical for food safety.
We also sanded off any loose paint and rust on the outside of the drum, then hit the exterior with a coat of high-heat BBQ paint. Now the barrel was completely clean and ready to become a smoker.
Drilling and Adding Air Vents
Airflow is the key to any good smoker, so next we added vents to the drum for air intake and exhaust.
Intake vents (bottom): We drilled three 1-inch holes equally spaced around the bottom of the drum (about 2 inches up from the base). Into each hole we inserted a 3/4-inch steel pipe nipple to serve as an air intake. Each nipple lets us screw a cap on or off to close or open that vent. On one of the three intakes, we used a small ball valve instead of a cap for finer control (optional but handy).
Exhaust vents (top): Our drum’s lid had two bung holes that worked great as pre-made exhaust vents. If your lid is solid, drill two or three half-inch holes in it to let smoke out. These top vents should stay open during cooks to allow heat and smoke to escape (we’ll control temperature using the bottom intakes).
After drilling all the holes, we used a metal file to smooth out any sharp edges. Then we screwed in the pipe nipples nice and tight and made sure our caps (and valve) fit properly. Our barrel now had three “mouths” down low and a couple of chimneys up top – it was really starting to look like a smoker!
Installing the Grate and Fire Basket
Inside the drum, we need a place to hold the charcoal and a place to hold the food.
Cooking grate: We installed four bolts about 7 inches below the top rim of the drum (evenly spaced around the circumference). These act as sturdy pegs to support a 22-inch round cooking grate (we repurposed an old kettle grill grate for this). Just set the grate on the bolts, and now you have a nice cooking surface inside your barrel.
Charcoal basket: Next, we need a basket to hold the charcoal at the bottom. We rolled a piece of expanded metal into a circle and attached it to a round charcoal grate to form a homemade basket. Three small bolts as legs on the bottom raise this basket a couple of inches off the drum’s floor for better airflow underneath. If DIY basket-making isn’t your thing, you can use any metal basket or crate that fits inside the drum. The goal is simply to keep your coals together and slightly elevated so air can circulate and ash can drop away.
(Our homemade basket might not win beauty contests, but it’s rock-solid functional. As Jake likes to remind us, when it comes to BBQ pits, function matters far more than form!)
Assembling and Seasoning the Smoker
Now we have a drum with vents, a charcoal basket, and a cooking grate – it’s time to assemble everything and do a seasoning burn.
Place the charcoal basket in the center of the drum’s bottom. Set the cooking grate on the support bolts inside the drum. Make sure the lid fits on nicely (adjust the bolts or grate position if needed).
Before cooking food, we need to season the smoker. Seasoning means coating the interior with oil and heating it, which protects the metal and primes it for great BBQ. Using a cloth, we wiped down the entire inside of the drum (and the grate) with a thin layer of cooking oil. Just a light coat will do.
Loading up your Barrel Smoker
Next, we loaded the basket about half full of charcoal and lit it. (We started a few briquettes in a chimney starter and dumped them onto the rest of the unlit coals in the basket – this method slowly ignites the whole pile.) We opened all the vents and let the drum heat up. Once it hit around 250°F, we put the lid on and threw a couple of wood chunks onto the coals for good measure. Then we just let the drum smoker cruise for about 1–2 hours. This seasoning burn burned off any remaining nasties inside and coated the metal with greasy, smoky goodness.
(Eric even tossed a few garlic cloves and onion pieces onto the coals during our seasoning burn – his idea of an aromatic “christening” for the new smoker. It probably didn’t do anything magical, but it sure made our yard smell great!)
After a couple hours, we let the fire die out and the smoker cool down. The shiny new interior had turned a nice dull, seasoned bronze color. Our DIY drum smoker was officially built, seasoned, and ready for its first cook!
First Cook and Tips
With the drum seasoned and ready, it was finally time to cook something and see how this baby would perform. We recommend starting with a forgiving meat for your first cook, like a pork shoulder (for pulled pork) or some whole chickens. These can handle temperature swings and are perfect for getting the hang of your new smoker (save the pricey brisket for once you’re a bit more comfortable).
When you’re ready to cook, fill the charcoal basket and light the coals just like you did for the seasoning burn. Let the smoker heat up to your target range (around 225–250°F for low and slow BBQ). Then adjust the vents to stabilize the temperature – usually this means leaving the exhaust fully open and partially closing the intake vents to hold steady. Give the drum a little time to settle in. Once it’s humming along at a consistent temp, you’re ready to smoke.
First Cook on your Barrel Smoker
On our inaugural cook, we smoked a rack of ribs and a pork shoulder. Jake was so excited, he got up at dawn to start the fire (that’s dedication!). Matt hovered near the drum with a thermometer in hand, fine-tuning the vents to keep the heat just right. And Eric whipped up a special dry rub and a homemade BBQ sauce for the occasion. The smoker held at around 250°F for hours with only minor adjustments. When we finally pulled those ribs off, they had a beautiful pink smoke ring and were fall-off-the-bone tender. That first bite confirmed it – our DIY barrel smoker was a winner. We might have done a little happy dance in the backyard at that point.
Tips for success:
- Be patient and trust the process: It’s easier to slowly raise the temperature than to cool down an overheated drum. So start with a moderate amount of lit coals rather than a raging fire. Also, avoid the temptation to peek too often – every time you lift the lid, you lose heat and smoke. Relax and let your smoker do its thing.
- Use quality wood chunks: Add 2–3 fist-sized chunks of dry hardwood (hickory, apple, oak – your choice) on the coals for that delicious smoky flavor. No need to soak them; dry chunks will smolder nicely for hours.
Final Thoughts
Building a DIY drum smoker is absolutely worth the effort. You end up with a great cooker for your backyard and the pride of having built it yourself. For us, it was more than just a weekend project – it was a blast, and it even brought us brothers closer together (nothing like a little metal-grinding and fire-tending to bond people!).
Feel free to customize your smoker and make it truly yours. Paint it your favorite color, add wheels or handles, maybe attach a bottle opener to the side. The beauty of a homemade smoker is that you can tweak and improve it over time. Jake is already planning to hang sausages in ours, Matt wants to add a second cooking rack, and Eric… he’s just excited to smoke even more food and experiment with new flavors.
Remember, BBQ is a journey. Building this barrel smoker is a big milestone on that journey, and now you’ve got a custom pit to show for it. So fire it up, experiment, and enjoy every moment – from the first spark to the final feast. If three DIY-loving guys like us can do it, you can too. Welcome to the drum smoker club, and happy smoking!
Grilling can be dangerous. Information provided is for educational purposes only. Always follow proper grilling and food safety guidelines when handling and cooking meat. Use a meat thermometer to ensure safe internal temperatures, wash hands and surfaces thoroughly, and avoid cross-contamination. Information is for educational purposes only
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