So I Turned My Shirley Fabrication Warming Box Into A Vertical Smoker

[WeberWho]

Hopefully no one has to do this. Leave it to Shirley Fabrication when purchasing your smoker. Unfortunately I'm 1,035 miles away and I'm the second owner of the pit. So I was on my own. I thought I'd share the process with you guys.

I think the hardest part was cutting into the smoker. Once you make that first cut its no turning back. Which wasn't terrible. It gave my Dad an excuse to pull out his plasma cutter and play around.









The next part was making the rails for the damper. The bottom of the warming box sees all kinds of high heat from the firebox below. So the top of the firebox/warming box has a bunch of play in it. So welding a flat piece of angle iron on a piece of steel that isn't flat wasn't going to necessarily work all that well. (Another reason to have Shirley Fabrication do this when when everything is straight and true) So my Dad, brother in law, and I thought we could cut some angle iron down and shape it to the floor. This way we could open of the sides of the glides for more heat and still have the damper stay in place.



After figuring out the glides we made a handle and welded on the damper.





After welding in the glides and stops, we turned the warming box into a makeshift spray booth.





Here's a pic of the heat deflector in place.





The handle and block plate getting put together.





Sunday morning I fired it up to burn off the paint. Sunday evening I played around with it. The heat seems consistent from side to side. The block plate looks to be doing its job when around 350 degress in the warming cabinet.





Food time!



I'm glad to have it done. It will be a nice addition to the smoker. I still need some more time to play around with it yet. A big thank you to my Dad and brother in law for the tools and brains to put this together.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Smoke on Badger Mountain]

Nice mod!

 

[pjtexas1]

Did cry a little during that first cut? Nice work!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[SmittyJonz]

:clap2:

 

[kingjman]

Modding stuff is always so much fun!

Looks great!......and very functional.

 

[bschoen]

Nicely done!

 

[Hotch]

You da man!! :mrgreen:

Next up a drip pan?
I will use the bottom shelf with a full size disposable hotel pan in mine next time I decide to cook 6 butts at 325!
Life lesson learned my friend.

 

[angryelfFan]

That will work! Nice

 

[Stingerhook]

Nice work.

 

[WeberWho]

Did cry a little during that first cut? Nice work!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Thanks! A little a nerve-wracking at first but more thrilled that it was being started. The smoker has been sitting at my parents place the last few months patiently being waited to be worked on. I've split some wood in the meantime. So we should be in good shape when she makes the trip back home.

 

[WeberWho]

You da man!! :mrgreen:

Next up a drip pan?
I will use the bottom shelf with a full size disposable hotel pan in mine next time I decide to cook 6 butts at 325!
Life lesson learned my friend.

Thanks!

I was wondering how that was going to work with a drip pan. I laid down some tin foil but figured there must be a better way with drippings. I thought about using a disposable drip pan but I was using all 3 shelves. I didn't know how the air flow would go with some type of drip pan on the heat deflector. My only idea is to hang a drip pan from the last grate. Low enough from the grate to still get airflow but high enough off the heat deflector. I'll have to play around and see how that works. I'm excited nontheless to use the warming box. Especially with higher heat cooks

 

[Kevin89]

Thanks!

I was wondering how that was going to work with a drip pan. I laid down some tin foil but figured there must be a better way with drippings. I thought about using a disposable drip pan but I was using all 3 shelves. I didn't know how the air flow would go with some type of drip pan on the heat deflector. My only idea is to hang a drip pan from the last grate. Low enough from the grate to still get airflow but high enough off the heat deflector. I'll have to play around and see how that works. I'm excited nontheless to use the warming box. Especially with higher heat cooks

Since you can weld, why don't you weld some "rails" on the underside of the bottom grate for a drip pan to slide in/out on.

 

[Czarbecue]

I’m actually surprised someone would skip on adding that feature. Good welding job :thumb:

 

[WeberWho]

Since you can weld, why don't you weld some "rails" on the underside of the bottom grate for a drip pan to slide in/out on.

I'll have to come up with something. I wonder how air flow will go with a big drip pan though? It will take some playing around with

 

[WeberWho]

I’m actually surprised someone would skip on adding that feature. Good welding job :thumb:

Thanks!

I might be way off but I'm not sure if it was an option with the earlier patio models. It did come with a charcoal basket in warming cabinet if you wanted to direct grill in it.

 

[Hotch]

My first big "Hot Cook" in the warmer of my Shirley 24x42 was 6 butts on the top 2 racks along with 5 briskets in the main chamber.
Being my first big cook with an offset, along with my lack of experience, I thought the charcoal pan would double as a drip pan. In my lack of wisdom I never thought that cooking in the warmer at 315 with 6 butts, 12lbs each, would be anything but successful! :bow:

So I loaded the charcoal pan with table salt to collect the drippings and started the cook. Same as I do on my Eggs sometimes. Well I ended up with a lot of drippings and a mess!! Who know that having the baffle plate wide open with a fire going at 315-325 degrees just below it would be an amazing event in physics that I never want to clean up again!!
In hind sight I had the bottom rack plum empty. And my inexperienced dumba$$ never thought to put a full size disposable hotel pan on an empty shelf! :doh:

It was a lesson learned with the results (mess) I created. And with that nugget of knowledge I now use the charcoal pan empty as a heat buffer and deflector, along with a full size hotel pan on the lower shelf. This along with a level cooker setup and keeping the proteins from the edge of the racks.
:mrgreen: