Thread: Building a spit roaster

Hi Tristan, I'm slowly managing to build one in between many other little projects..

I'm going for more of a portable roaster type cooker that will not have a drive to rotate the meat.

Its 400mm x 400mm x 700mm long and designed to take x2 full size oven trays so you can have a tray of Veges on one side and say a big roast pork on the other side.

You could also take the trays off and lay down a large rolled roast or fill it up with chickens or smaller roasts.

Whilst its always nice to have a pig or a whole animal on a spit 95% of the time I'm feeding 4 to 10 people so wanted something easy to clean and portable to do this.

I've made the gas burner by cutting the end off a 1" stainless steel burner from Mitre 10mega (x2for $30) and welding a 1" stainless tube extension onto the end of it. All you have to do then is to follow the existing hole pattern down the length of the extension and cap off the end.

The great thing about this is that the in-feed end of burner has the proper air regulator adjustment and venturi so it's very easy to get it burning blue and hot after extending it.

For a larger cooker you could look at using somemthing like stainless steel box section with an inverted angle iron section that sits inside it. The purpose of this is to evenly disperse the gas along its length so the flame is burning evenly. The burner sits on a 45 deg and slots are cut in the top corner of the box section. The ends are sealed and the gas is fed into the burner by using a .9mm mig welding tip. You have to drill holes in the cap plate under the in feed to allow oxygen to suck into the burner and this will be a bit hit and miss until you manage to get the correct gas/oxygen mix.

There are some good online sites in NZ that supply gas and BBQ components. I've seen one that sells spare parts for large commercial roasters including drives and burners you you maybe able to just purchase the parts and make your own body and lid yourself if you don't have the setup to be able to fiddle around with a gas burner.

Good Luck!