Drum Prep Methods?

Greatscott!

New member
Hi all! Long time griller, first time UDS smoker!

First, HUGE thanks to BP for these forums. There's a ton of information out there about drum smoking but this seems like a great place to pull it all together. Really appreciate you and the class-act company you run.

I'm getting ready to build my first UDS and plan to do so with the BP kit. The one thing I'm having a hard time getting a clear understanding of is how to prep a drum for safe cooking.

From what I gather, the best method (meaning safest) is to strip down the inside of your drum down to bare steel. From what I've read, that usually means 1 or 2 high temp burns, which leaves char and maybe even chemical residue, depending on what your drum used to hold and whether or not it had a liner.

So I'm considering doing a burn out and then having the drum sandblasted, inside and out. Or is that overkill? The way I figure it, seasoning the inside with vegetable oil or cooking spray is supposed to help rust-proof the drum, so no big loss of any kind of interior chemical rust retardant. And the outside I'd just as soon paint myself with high-temp spray in a color of my choosing anyway.

So does a burnout + sandblasting seem reasonable? Safe? Or overkill?

For the record, I haven't located my drum yet, but wouldn't quite feel safe trying to use anything that held toxins. I intend to go with a used food-product drum or new drum, depending on my luck.

Thanks for your thoughts, looking forward to participating here.

Scott
 

Steviez269

New member
I'd sandblast it even Id it were food grade just for safety sake . I'm lucky enough to live close to a drum manufacturer that I can get a new food grade 16 gauge steel drum not painted with a Lid for $50 . I give it a sand with an electric sander after using a non toxic wax and grease remover , paint it with grill paint then do a small fire to cure the paint and season it .
 
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