Anyone have any experience in building or using a clay pot smoker. I have
read some specs on Kamado cookers and DIY, e.g. building one from ceramic
clay pots for small trees. Any input or ideas. I was going to build a
brick smoker but this sounds like a fun as a small weekend DIY
project/hobby. I have an old gas (LPG) burner from a burned out smoker I
can utilize for heat control and to ignite my wood chips. Any ideas guys,
or should I buy more bricks and finish building my smoker. We may sell the
house in the next year and I have a small grave yard of smokers and gas
grills out here waiting on heavy trash day, but still have that bond with
them that they may heal themselves some day....rust, clogged burners,
leaking jets, leaking burner lines, just from overuse...LOL. I have won two
competition cooking awards with a couple of them, hence you can see my
endearment to my old fossils.

I should mention I am halfway through building my brick smoker, but it would
make a great flower bed if I went with a Kamado style clay pot
cooker/smoker. I saw this link as a reference point:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...iy_smoker.html

One gentleman in our group suggested the Kamado cooker (two weeks ago) as an
idea, but I had poured the concrete foundation for my smoker by that point.
Well once I started to lay the bricks my wife mentioned our school district
sucked and after ten years of me saying lets sell the house, she said OK.
Hence the Egg or Kamado cooker looked better...then the physicist in me said
build one to your own specs.

As my wife said if I buy an Egg, Kamado cooker, or build my own I can take
it with me on my competitions. Our past two awards were in shellfish at the
Texas Gulf Coast Grilling Cookoffs, so no need for large smokers since we
are just cooking for the judges. We make five gallons of gumbo for the
guest and clients, plus two of my team mate bring trailer smokers for just
fun, and to feed our team(s) brisket and sausage while we cook our seafood.

The trailer smokers have won in the Galveston County cookoffs so that aspect
is covered, it is my personal entries in the seafood competition that has
taken second place twice now and I want to keep that on a small and personal
level. As mentioned in my past post, with six kids, three of which in
college (with friends) I feed a small tribe at least twice a week. My
grills and smokers at best give me three or four years before they die a
slow death in this Gulf Coast environment Houston has to offer.

Respectfully,

John H. Carrillo
Senior Health Physicist/CEO
JHC Environmental Group, LTD.

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