Well... I've talked about doing this for some time now and I finally got around to doing it so I thought I would share some pictures of the project. I wanted to do this for a couple of reasons. First, obviously to cold smoke. The second reason is because I have my smoker setup in my garage I wanted to eliminate as much risk of fire as I can. There have been very few members here that have had any problems but the few that have I felt was caused by the spent pucks piled up enough that they were not in the water in the bowl, add to this grease dripping into the bowl onto the pucks that were not extinguished properly and you have potential for a grease fire in the smoker. Now this could obviously be prevented by simply emptying the spent pucks and refilling the water bowl and this is certainly why everybody does this. But, again, because this is in my garage I wanted to eliminate any chance of this happening.
I managed to get my hands on a 10 gallon hydraulic oil reservoir. It's made of 1/8 inch steel and is about 16 inches square and tall. It was new and never used so I didn't have to worry about the oil contamination. I had to cut a 4.5 inch hole for the generator, a 4 inch hole for the vent to the smoker and a 7 inch by 12 inch hole for the door. Next I built a door that was 14 inches by 9 inches to allow for a 1 inch overlap to insure a good seal. I discovered that if your use 1/4 inch carriage bolts in a 1/4 inch hole the square collar of the bolt works perfect to hang the generator on. I also used carriage bolts to make adjustable legs for it. I managed to get the door to seal very well and with the draw of the rising smoke to the tower unit I have no leaks at the door even though I didn't use any type of seal on it.
I ran it empty for 2 hours and the highest it got to was 87 degrees. I never even had any water in the bowl so I feel confident that once I have product and water in the bowl in there it will easily maintain a temp around 80 degrees. Anyway... I thought would share a few pictures of the setup.
Mike
