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
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