I made a cooker out of a 55 gallon barrel as has been discussed in the
past. They work really well as far as holding temperature and not having
to turn the meat.

What I did was, using a barrel that has a removable lid, drill three
evenly spaced holes, 1/2 inch big, around the base about 3-4 inch up
from bottom and then drilled 6 evenly spaced holes, 1/2 inch big in the lid.

I bought the barrel for $7, grill for $16, stainless nuts/bolts for $3,
used bricks to hold up an old grill upon which I placed a ring of steel
to contain the coals. I also drilled a tight fitting hole for a probe to
go in just below the grill level.

I used 3 weber chimney's of unlit briquettes, and one chimney of lit
briquettes on top on the unlit (of course , I slapped two spare ribs
on with rub and they were the best I have ever made, and it's the
easiest to do, the thing practically runs itself, I kid you not, So I
highly recommend this style of homemade cooker.

With the hole sizes that I used and the amount of coals that I used it
came up to 263F and locked in until it started to cool off, the ribs
were membrane side down and as I said, never turned them.They were so
bloody tender, too tender. They cook about an hour faster due to the design.

Piedmont

P.S.: My wife Jean is doing ok so far with her lung cancer. Chemo only
reduced the lung tumor slightly and didn't stop the adrenal gland from
growing by 35%. Our next treatment is specialized: Shaped Beam Radio
Surgery, then probably followed up with future chemotherapy. Thank God
for good medical insurance!