Gas Grill to Smoker Project

#1
volinbham

volinbham

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#1
I have an old Weber gas grill (two burner) that is unused.

I'd like to convert it to a full time smoker - anyone done this or have any words of wisdom?

The main issue I see is that the grates run from front to back and split in the middle of the grill while the burners run from side to side. Ideally, I'd pull a grate and put a pan of wood chips in but I can only use one burner or I'll have direct heat on the meat. (not sure if that makes sense)

TIA

:hi:
 
#2
#2
Take an 1/8th inch piece of steel the same size as your grill. Take some steel rebar and weld it to the inside. Put enough to hold the weight of the steel plate. Put it so the steel is right above the burner. Soak your chips and place them right on top of the steel. As they get hot, they will smoke but shouldn't burn.

Should work fine
 
#3
#3
You can put wood chips in foil, and put the foil on the burner to get the same effect.

Alton Brown did an episode of good eats on this. Relatively easy and cheap.
 
#4
#4
the plan was to do the foil pan on the burner - just wish the grate/burner config was better.

as it is, when I take off one grate (to add chips) it exposes one half of each burner. the controls however only control a burner at a time so I end up with chips over 1/2 of one burner.

anyone know if it's possible to plug a burner so that only one side burns? If I could do that I could put a large foil pan over both burners on one side of the grill and have the meat on the other side without being exposed to direct heat.
 
#5
#5
Could you stick weld the holes you don't want to use with a high temp welding rod?
 
#6
#6
Why not just remove the burners? The burners rusted out of my old grill so I pulled them out and opened up the entire space under the grates. I put lava rocks in the bottom to reflect the heat and just burn either charcoal or wood for cooking. I could easily put wood on one side and put meat on the other if I wanted to smoke the meat.
 
#7
#7
YorkVol said:
Why not just remove the burners? The burners rusted out of my old grill so I pulled them out and opened up the entire space under the grates. I put lava rocks in the bottom to reflect the heat and just burn either charcoal or wood for cooking. I could easily put wood on one side and put meat on the other if I wanted to smoke the meat.
Click to expand...

See people? This is why I come to the VN.

You've given me much to think about. :hi:
 
#8
#8
For ~180.00 ....you can avoid a messy adaption of a gas grill. I have used this one below for 10 years and it is still in great shape, and offer excellent control of the heat.

Some concern about trying to put a source of heat too close to those ribs with that gas grill conversion. Difficult to control.

8710751_260.jpg
 
#11
#11
Okay smokers - tell me if this will work.

I'd like on side of the grill to be indirect heat but the burners run from side to side.

One option would be to somehow "plug" the holes on half of each burner so it doesn't work.

Another option would be to put a ceramic stone or flower pot drip trap over the burners to prevent the direct heat. I assume I could put a pan of water on the stone.

In both cases, the operating/uncovered portion of the burners is where I'd put the wood chips package/tray

Questions -

would the stone/ceramic thing work? what does the pan of water do? does it diffuse the heat somehow?
 
#13
#13
Actually, the water puts moisture in the heated air to not dry out the meat. You can also use wine or, my favorite, apple juice. The acid is a tenderizer and the water provides moisture. Using gas ain't smokin'.
 
#14
#14
NEVolFan said:
For ~180.00 ....you can avoid a messy adaption of a gas grill. I have used this one below for 10 years and it is still in great shape, and offer excellent control of the heat.

Some concern about trying to put a source of heat too close to those ribs with that gas grill conversion. Difficult to control.

8710751_260.jpg
Click to expand...

I use this set-up with some modifications. Smokingmeatforum is a good site and has how-to's on doing the mods to the Chargriller to make it perform optimally. Out of the box the cooking chanber is VERY uneven and a cool spot develops under the stack due to how the heat flows.
 
#15
#15
So here's an update. I bought about 10 4 inch clay saucers. I put them over the flavorizer bars (under the grate but over the burners). I have a metal drip pan on top of those that I plan to also use for a water tray. The saucers cover about 2/3s of the grill and should make that area an indirect heat zone. On the other end, I put a smoker pouch (chips in aluminum foil). With only one burner on low I appear to be keeping a temp between 225 and 250. Pouch is smoking.

I would consider the test run a success. Once I clean up the grill and give it a try (may do bone-in chicken breast tonight) I'll report back and post pictures.


Total investment so far = about $8.
 
#16
#16
how'd it go....did you eat chicken, or have to order pizza after screwing it up :)
 
#17
#17
Chicken turned out pretty good. First, chicken breasts aren't the greatest meat for smoking - not much collagen to break down and can dry out pretty quickly.

That said, I took two firm, round breasts (I got distracted for a minute there sorry). I left the skin on but cut it to pull back and put rub on the meat under the skin. I put rub on the skin and drizzled it with apple juice.

It took about 2.5 hours to reach 160 internal temp. My smoke bombs ran out after about an hour so it wasn't as smoky as it could be but still had smoke flavor.

I put a pan lined with aluminum foil over the clay saucers but under the grate. I filled the grate with apple juice and I drizzle apple juice on the chicken every 1/2 hour or so.

At the end (last 10 minutes) I applied a carribean style (sweet/spicy) BBQ sauce.

Taste was good, with a bit of smoke flavor. Chicken was relatively moist, especially inside with only a few dry spots on the end. The chicken skin didn't darken much but had a little bit of crunch. The visual was the most disappointing (mostly yellow looking rather than brown/yellow) but once the sauce glazed a bit it looked better.

It worked well enough to try ribs but I definitely need to improve my smoke source. Temp control was good but it will be tough to go below 250 with any consistency. Stays right at 250 though very well.
 
#18
#18
A little post-mordem shows that one of the smoker packs didn't ignite. Had enough chips for the cook; just not enough concentrated heat to get them all going.
 
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