Big Barbeque Roaster Made Out Of Gas Pipe

Big Barbeque Roaster Made Out Of Gas Pipe FARM HOME Food 29-1-25 Old gas pipe can be used to make low-cost barbeque cookers, says Joe Rosenberg, St. Ansgar, Iowa, who converted a big piece of 1/2-in. thick gas pipe into a giant roaster that rides on a tandem axle trailer. The 30-in. dia. roaster measures 9 ft. long and has a separate firebox at one end. "I like to eat good food, which is why I decided to build my own roaster," says Rosenberg. "I don't go to restaurants as often as I did before because I can do a better job at home." Rosenberg says he got interested in building his own cooker after watching barbeque competitions on TV. "I already had a small barbeque but I decided I needed something bigger. So when I made a business trip down South, I took photos of several commercial cookers that I happened to see. I engineered my own ideas as I went along." He first built a brush fire inside the pipe to burn off any remaining tar residue. Then he used a cutting torch to cut out holes for a fire door, two hinged food rack lids, and a pair of 8-in. dia. smoke stacks with dampers on top of them. He had Wold Rim and Wheel Service in St. Ansgar, Iowa, square off the ends of the pipe. Cooking is done on four removable grills. Three cylinder-shaped metal counterweights are used to help raise the lids and hold them in place. A drawer at the bottom of the firebox is used to collect ashes and can be pulled out for easy cleaning. "It really works well and was cheap to build," says Rosenberg. "I paid $300 for the pipe. My total cost was only about $1,800. I've been offered $8,000 for it but I won't sell it. "I entered two competitions with it last summer and plan to do some cooking for special events this year. At one competiton I cooked two beef briskets, two pork shoulders, ten racks ribs, two turkeys, 15 lbs. of chicken, and a couple of pork loins at one time and still had room left over." The smoke stacks on his cooker come out the ends of the cooker. That way the smoke and heat have to swirl around inside before exiting, as opposed to the smoke stacks being on top and the smoke and heat going straight out the top. "I can adjust air inlets on the roaster and also adjust the damper to control the temperature of the roasting chamber. There are six temperature gauges on the roaster," says Rosenberg. Since the doors are made from 1/2-in. thick steel they're quite heavy. The counterweights make the doors much easier to open," says Rosenberg. "They also hold the doors open so they don't accidentally fall down on someone's head." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joe Rosenberg, 1085 420th St., St. Ansgar, Iowa 50472 (ph 641 713-4923).

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