VIDEO: This Is How You Can Make a Cheap Barbecue by Yourself with Things You Already Have

Who doesn’t love a nice barbecue when it’s warm outside and you have a day off? It’s the perfect vacation for which you don’t have to go too far, you can do it right in your backyard.

The food is great and the time spent doing it with friends, eating, drinking and talking is truly special.

According to makezine.com, true barbecue involves cooking meat over low heat for a long time – often for many hours.

I have a grill (a Weber kettle), but having to manage the fire for hours isn’t a lot of fun.

Smokers like the Weber Smoky Mountain start around $300 – and don’t even get me started about the Big Green Egg ($700+!).

And then I saw an episode of “Good Eats” where Alton Brown made his own smoker out of a hot plate, two flower pots, and a metal grill. The light bulb went on in my head. “I can do that!”

A Google search turns up many hits for “clay pot smoker” and I’ve benefited from their advice.

One of the modifications I wanted to include was to move the temperature control outside of the smoker into a separate box so I wouldn’t have to disassemble a hot smoker just to adjust the temperature.

All of this was done with just the hand tools I had on hand (mostly screwdriver, wire cutter/stripper, and electric drill).

First, I found a hotplate at a big-box store. I took it apart and found that the innards were pretty simple.

The burner itself could be detached from the housing and was connected to the rest of the wiring with spade connectors.

I could disconnect the wiring from the power cord and lift it intact from the hotplate housing.

This was good because I only have a rudimentary electrical knowledge – enough to know what I can and cannot do.

In this case, there was no need to do anything other than move the wiring into a project box.

I went to Radio Shack and found a plastic project box big enough to mount the control knob and hold all of the wiring from the hotplate.

I also bought a small packet of plastic grommets to prevent the insulation from rubbing off the wire at the points where it entered and left the box.

The insulation on the wires inside of the hotplate was different from the usual plastic stuff on most wires.

I realized that it was made to withstand high temperatures. Neither Radio Shack nor Home Depot could tell me how much heat their wire could take.

A friend who was an electrician said that he wasn’t sure about heat, but he did suggest using 12-gage wire. Finally, I located a source on-line that would sell me high-temperature wire in 25 ft. lengths.

The next problem was the connectors. The burner had spade connectors, but every packet or box of connectors I could find had plastic sleeves.

I didn’t know how heat sensitive they might be and no one seemed to be able to tell me. Finally, I took a box-knife, slit the sleeves, and took them off, leaving bare metal.