Hey guys, just wanted to share my first UDS build.
Got a drum for £25 off an online auction site, ended up getting two actually. The first one I got had the lining which I burnt a heavy wooden door and a wooden pallet in but it didn't get rid of it! I emailed the company and asked if they had any unlined drums in stock, and to my surprise they did. Bought one of them for the same price and burnt another pallet in it.
Got the grills from Homebase and the Stainless Steel nuts, bolts and washers from Screwfix. I tried B&Q but they only had galvanised equipment. The charcoal basket I'm using is a washing machine drum I bought for a tenner on the auction site. I drilled 8 24mm holes in the lid, and 3 24mm holes as intakes a couple inches from the bottom of the drum.
All in all it works pretty well. I was using the bottom of an old kettle BBQ that was laying around as a charcoal basket before, but the amount of thick white smoke and creosote tasting food it was producing was insane, really made me lose hope for the project. After getting the washing drum to use this was fixed completely, and all I had to do to that was drill a bunch of 20mm holes in the bottom for airflow. It also REALLY helped when I stopped using crappy charcoal, I ordered 24kg of restaurant grade lump charcoal for £30 online (expensive but I've only just got through one bag in 8 cooks, and that was with me forgetting to close the intakes off after I took the meat off!) but the other 12kg bag should last.
Finally as we're in the beautifully horrendous UK, weather was an issue. I bought a tarp and some bungie cord online for a fiver and made myself a lil gazebo. That paired with a Weber Chimney Starter for £15 and I'm all set! I recycled the old kettle bottom and propped it up on the lower grill (there's two installed) and used it as a fully functioning BBQ! Cooked for myself and ten other the other day when the weather peaked and damn did it work beautifully. So all in all for around £100 I have a smoker and BBQ, not bad.
Now to find some brisket locally... Images below guys
http://imgur.com/a/i36yG