Grill Daddys

I've been cooking on the grill for nearly 2 years now... and for the most part it has been utterly amazing in almost every way.  That said,  I did find 2 issues I needed/wanted addressed.  Issue #1 - I ran out of wood during my long cooks.  Fortunately, I had more in my pickup, but I needed a bigger wood box on the trailer.  To accomplish this,  we squared off the front and added more room for firewood on the trailer.  Issue #2 - there wasn't enough work space on the trailer itself.  To improve this,  we added an 8 ft stainless steel counter with double sinks.  Since I had the sinks,  I added a 10 gallon freshwater tank and 10 gallon gray water tank and a battery powered rv water pump.  Now,  I simply turn the faucet and I get water on demand... and I have lots of great workspace that is reasonably easy to keep clean.  Enough talk... here are the pictures:

So I got grill pulled back home, put the final lights on and put a final coat of heat resistant paint.  Here's the finished product:

So the smoker was working nearly flawlessly now, but you don't often see smoked hamburgers- and it's even more uncommon to see smoked steak.  There are simply some things that must be grilled.  I knew I wanted the grill to be large.  One of my previous (retired) grills let me cook 32 burgers at a time and it was great!   I wanted the ability back to cook a LOT of burgers at once.  I also knew that controlling temp on a charcoal grill can be harder than a gas grill- but this rig is going to be "a naturale"... No gas here!  After hours and hours of research, the best design I could find was a Santa Maria style/Argentine style grill with some tiny modifications/enhancements.  This style of grills has a wheel that turns and lifts the grill surface away from the heat source if needed.   We planned for a drop front to allow easy access to coals too.  This lets me easily move coals from the firebox to the grill, or from the grill to the firebox. I ordered the parts from Amaz

As mentioned, the firebox door warped when we cut it, so we bought new metal and remade the door.  We also added a sliding draft door to control airflow to the firebox.  While on this trip, we added a shelf around the smoker with hanging hooks and expanded metal on the floor of the trailer.  We applied heat resistant paint to the firebox and smoker so it is starting to look like the real deal.  Finally, I upgraded the rusted tire rims for new chrome rims and started putting on the trailer lights.

On second trip to Oklahoma, we added a door.  We also cut off the old single handle and welded 2 new "cool" handles that allow for easy lifting of the lid... And we added a counter balance weight to hold the lid open.  I didn't want the lid to go too far back making it difficult to close, but it had to stay open so I could work the smoker out too.  It was time to start a test fire to see how well it drafted and distributed heat.   I didn't want to go too far in building until we knew the fundamentals were right.  Most things went well except the door- and it warped when we were cutting it too size for the firebox.

My father pretty much epitomizes the definition of a modern Renaissance man- it's a large part of the reason I was willing to jump into this endeavor.  THANKS DAD!  I also have a cousin- shout out to Mike T.- who is an insanely talented welder.  While they both live 4 hours away in Oklahoma, I pulled the trailer to my dad's shop and work began.  First things we did included grinding down some of the really nasty welds and rewelding- especially around the seams of the tank.  We also put the metal plate about 6 inches below the grill surface to create a reverse flow smoker.  This created an even heat distribution, and the rounded end of the tank made for amazing air circulation.  We used some expanded metal and installed the shelf as a sliding shelf- this allows easy access to meats that go to the back of the grill and would be otherwise difficult to reach.  We also ordered a 4" cast iron stove damper and installed it inside the smoke stack before cutting a hole and welding