American Style Commercial Smokers
UK Built Barbecue Trailers

American style commercial smokers UK built barbecue trailers. Custom made to your specification or built to our standard design, tow one away and your barbecue catering and hog roast business is pretty much up and running.

Our American style commercial trailer smoker UK hand built.

Michael's smokers have all been designed himself coupled with the knowledge that I've gained through BBQ catering.

I believe that there are three things to consider when catering

  • Practicality and cooking capability of the equipment used
  • The theatre and atmosphere created in serving the food
  • Quality of the food served

That said, you may have some ideas of your own and Michael is happy to discuss and draw up a design for you that exactly meets your needs.

Imagine towing one of these beauties onto a food festival, town show or farmers market. With smoke billowing from the chimney, they certainly draw the crowds.

Trailers And The Law

The vehicle quality standardisation programme instituted by the United Nations dictates that every trailer constructed or sold in the UK after 28.10.2012  must have an approval certificate.

This law has been introduced to crack down on the cowboy builders and doesn't just apply to a BBQ smoker trailer. Whatever trailer you are considering to buy the first question you must ask the builder is whether the trailer has an approval certificate. This certificate ensures that every component such as brakes, hitches, axles and lights has approval. 

Towing a non-approved trailer could land you in hot water if you were ever involved in an accident or indeed need breakdown assistance.

As a small manufacturer there are two choices.

  1. Have every trailer we build inspected by UK government VOSA inspector.
  2. Buy from a reputable mass producer and build our commercial smokers on one of these.

Michael chooses option 2. His barbecue trailers are manufactured using an EU certified trailer chassis because this also means that his smokers look smart on a rust proofed galvanised frame.

Commercial smokers UK built on a rust proof galvanised chassisCommercial Smokers UK Built On EC Approved Galvanised Chassis

To the rear side there are stainless steel baskets for equipment and fuel.

The "Standard" Design For Barbecue Trailers

This model is perfect for markets, shows and food festivals. Built on a 3m long chassis (designed to sit to the side / under a standard market gazebo) this unit consists of a cylindrical main food chamber with flat front door which can be used either as a grill or reverse flow smoker, a large firebox with oven / smoker above.

Main Food Chamber

The charcoal trays allow direct heat and also act as the baffle plates when smoking

1.4m long constructed of 3mm plate steel and 6mm end plates. Internally there are drawers in the bottom used for charcoal when grilling and these same trays act as baffle plates when smoking. In addition there are 2 shelf runners and 2 professional grade type 304 stainless steel food grates for good hygiene and easy cleaning. At 1000mm x 450mm (approx.) you can cook a small hog on one rack and much more above or below.

Stainless steel cooking grates and front shelves

To the front there are also 2 type 304 stainless steel shelves making them easy to keep hygienically clean.

A flat front door design is used for 2 key reasons:

  1. The seating of a flat door delivers less smoke and heat leakage when in use.
  2. The door lip hinders moisture ingress whether in use or not in use - a lesson learned while cooking on a day of heavy rain showers!

Vertical Smoker / Warming Oven

Sitting directly over the firebox is a cabinet containing 4 stainless steel shelves. You can fill these with meat or insert 420mm x 305 x 100mm deep roasting dishes (not included).

Vertical Smoker seated above the firebox

This cabinet can be used as a warming oven simply using the radiated heat from the firebox.

In the top of the vertical smoker we have also installed a hanging rod for cold smoking.

The Fire Box

Commercial smoker firebox is 6mm thick

Constructed from 6mm plate steel includes 2 daisy wheel adjustable dampers with stainless steel levers, side access and an internal fuel basket.

The use of 6mm steel reflects Michael's commitment to quality and longevity. He wants his product to last you a lifetime without the need to replace the firebox every two years because there’s a hole in it. Beware of any smoker manufacturer using less than 6mm plate steel for a firebox.

Finishing Touches

It's not just about hygiene and public safety, Michael wants his trailers to look good too and the double stainless steel flue really helps make an impact.

American commercials smokers UK built with stainless steel flue
The back stop for the lid features a carabiner safety chainAmerican Commercial Smokers UK Built With Safety And Convenience In Mind

The safety of both you and your staff is also paramount. To that end the lid has a back stop and carabiner securing chain so there's no chance that the heavy lid can fall while loading the smoker.

The paint used is black & heat resistant to 700°C

Finally a ball valve drain has been installed to help with cleaning. Use a power washer to clean the internal chamber and then you can let the grey water drain out of the bottom into a bucket.

The ball valve drain

Bespoke Commercial Smokers UK Built Trailers

Michael's commercial smokers UK built don't stop at the standard, he's happy to do bespoke designs.

This one is 4.5m long and features a direct grill cabinet to the front. Stainless steel internals and a stainless steel shelf as you'd expect of course.

If you have something in mind then please call us and we'll cost up your design. You'll find some more examples below.

The Full Specification

This specification applies to the standard 3m trailer:

  • EC approved galvanised trailer chassis
  • Food chamber 3mm rolled steel with 6mm end plates
  • Flat front door design to minimise leakages
  • Door back stop with safety securing chain
  • Charcoal tray baffle plates so main chamber doubles up as direct heat grill
  • Vertical smoker / high temperature oven with hanging rod (cold smoking) above firebox
  • 6mm steel firebox with slide out basket, daisy wheel dampers with stainless steel levers
  • Heat resistant paint to 700°C
  • Hygienic stainless steel cooking grates and front shelves (2 in main chamber, 4 further grates in the vertical oven)
  • Dual pipe stainless steel flue with rain caps and stainless steel side storage basket.
  • Grease drain ball valve to bottom of main chamber
  • Locking doors for security
  • 2 drop stay legs at rear of trailer for stability

How To Order Your Commercial Smoker Trailer

Request a call back using the rapid response form below.

If you want the standard design then the ex-works price is £5,000

A 50% deposit secures your order. Construction will take approximately 4 weeks and then you pay the balance and collect your smoker. Prices quoted are ex-works however delivery can be arranged.

Quirky Commercial Smokers UK Made By Michael:

VW Camper Smoker

In order to fully understand your needs, it will be necessary to arrange a series of telephone meetings to discuss your ideas and pull together a number of drawings that diagrammatically depict the final construction. Once agreed, Michael will calculate the price. You sign off on the price and the drawings, pay a 50% deposit and the construction phase begins. Dependent on the size and complexity of the construction, this can take between 4 – 8 weeks.

Our Next Project

How does this look?

Seated on a double axle trailer. Michael will weld a 1m cubed firebox and make the full conversion to build you the biggest commercial smoker in the UK...have you got the imagination to put it to use?

Our user guide below will help you understand how to operate these American commercial smokers UK and determine whether it's the right piece of equipment for you to purchase.

American Commercial Smokers UK User Guide

It’s worth starting by saying that large offset reverse flow smokers like these need care and attention to get the best out of them and once set up, any change, no matter how small will change the oven temperature and therefore necessitate monitoring and adjustment.

Fuel

In a smoker this size you need to use hardwood logs and preferably a log from a tree that bares fruit, do not use softwood (it makes your food taste awful) and make sure that your logs have been aged for at least a year. The aging process reduces the moisture content in the wood, having some moisture in the wood is actually a good thing because in a moist environment smoke particles clump together and are more likely to stick to your meat and impart flavour.

When cooking your meat you’re looking for blue wispy smoke and this smoke comes when your fire is in a state of embers. Compare that smoke with the thick white smoke that you get at the start of combustion, cooking in this smoke will give your food an acrid taste.

  1. Take time to set up your smoker – typically big trailer smokers need 90 minutes preparation before they are ready to cook on.
  2. When replenishing the firebox, don’t add fresh un-burnt wood as this will turn your smoke white. Add pre-burnt wood, the best way to do this is have a separate fire pit burning fresh logs by the side of your firebox. When these logs break down into embers then it’s time to add them to your firebox fire. You’ll need to add a couple of logs more or less on the hour so keep 4 logs burning in your fire pit.

Set Up

To get your fire going, fill the firebox with wood, open the draft vents, open the chimney damper and keep your food chamber door open too. It helps to remove the stainless steel food racks so that they don’t get covered in black smoke particulates.

After half an hour or so you’ll start to see the smoke change from black to white so now it’s time to close the food chamber door and bring it up to temperature.

Make sure that the chimney damper is fully open during this time and remember it will take longer to do this in Winter when the ambient temperature is lower.

As the food chamber comes up to temperature you can start playing with firebox damper adjustment and use the chimney damper for fine tuning.

Cooking

Now it’s time to put your food on. If you’re taking hunks of meat straight from the refrigerator and placing them on the food racks then this will dip the temperature in the food chamber, the same applies if adding cold water to a drip tray. I always recommend allowing meat to come out of the refrigerator a couple of hours before cooking and adding hot water to a drip tray. Food hygienists will not agree but…

The food chambers have thermometers on both sides so they will give you a good idea what’s happening in your food chamber but there’s still no substitute for a good remote thermometer to tell you exactly what’s going on in and around your meat.

On the hour or when the temperature dips (less than an hour in Winter), add another couple of pre-burned logs.

Cleaning

When you’ve finished cooking and whilst the unit is still hot, spray the inside with water to remove grease and scrub down. Open the gate valve under the tank to drain. You can pressure wash if you want but never add soap or detergent.

Que Fresco Barbecue Enquiry

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See Also:-

In addition to commercial smokers uk manufacturing Michael also provides the following BBQ services:

Stainless Steel Charcoal Grills
Stainless Steel Fire Pits
Replacement Stainless Steel Cooking Grates

Solo Build It!

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