Burn Barrel

Learn what a burn barrel is, how pits use it to make clean coals for live fire cooking, and the safety basics for handling hot embers

Anatomy and how it works

Most burn barrels start as repurposed 55-gallon steel drums. The lid is cut away to create an open top for loading wood. Inside, holes are drilled and rebar or concrete stakes are pushed through in a crisscross pattern to form a rack that keeps the logs off the floor of the barrel and allows air to circulate.

As the logs burn on that rack, embers drop through and pile up at the bottom. A rectangular opening is cut near the base of the drum, just wide enough for a shovel. Throughout the cook, the pitmaster slides a flat-headed shovel into that opening, pulls out a scoop of glowing coals, and carries them to the pit.

Set on cinder blocks or a metal stand, the barrel sits high enough to work safely and low enough to be stable. Some builders add small vent holes or slits to improve airflow. The design is simple, but it does three important things:

• Contains the fire in a safe, controllable space
• Concentrates heat to turn logs into coals efficiently
• Lets ash fall away so you’re shoveling mostly clean embers, not cinders and dust

Understanding that basic anatomy makes it easier to build your own barrel and to spot a good one when you see it.

Why Pitmasters Use a Burn Barrel

A burn barrel is about control and flavor. Burning logs directly under meat can throw off thick, white smoke loaded with creosote and other harsh compounds. That kind of smoke can make food taste bitter and leave it coated in soot.

By pre-burning hardwood in a barrel, you let the fire go through its dirty phase somewhere else. Moisture, resins, and impurities burn off in the open drum. What you move under the meat are mostly glowing coals and a faint, clean “blue” smoke that gives a gentle wood flavor instead of a heavy, acrid one. 

Coals also give steadier heat. Flames surge and fall; embers radiate. A burn barrel lets you cook with heat rather than chase a live fire all night.

Burn Barrels and Whole Hog Barbecue

Nowhere is the burn barrel more important than in whole hog cooking. When you’re cooking a 150- to 200-pound hog on a block pit, you can’t just light a log fire under the animal and hope for the best. You need low, steady heat for many hours.

Pitmasters like Rodney Scott build a burn barrel beside the pit, feed it with splits of oak or hickory, and shovel fresh coals under the hog at regular intervals all night long. One person tends the barrel, keeping the wood burning and the coals building. Another tends the pit, banking those coals where they’re needed and watching the hog.

Coals are usually added every 20–45 minutes, depending on weather, pit design, and the size of the hog. You have to think ahead: start burning a new batch of wood before the coals under the pig die down, or you’ll lose heat. It’s hard work, but it’s also what gives whole hog cooked this way its distinct, gentle smoke and deep flavor.

Other Barbecue Uses

The burn-first, cook-with-coals idea isn’t limited to whole hog. The same hardwoods you feed this burn barrel, especially oak and hickory, are ideal fuel for offset smokers and kettle grills too, so you can keep your wood pile simple. If you want help matching woods to different meats, our wood pairing guide walks through the best options.

• Offset smokers: Some stick-burner cooks pre-burn logs in a small barrel, burn box, or even a charcoal chimney, then add those coals to the firebox for a cleaner burn from the start. 
• Kettles and backyard grills: Instead of tossing raw chunks or splits on a charcoal fire, you can pre-burn them in a safe container and use the embers to boost your coal bed without big temperature swings.
• Open-pit grilling and asados: Many whole-animal and open-grate cooks, from Argentine asados to church barbecues, burn wood in a separate pit or barrel and shovel embers under the meat, working from the same principle.

Even if you never cook a whole hog, understanding how a burn barrel works can make you better at managing fire and smoke on almost any cooker. If that cooker happens to be a holiday bird, the Turkey Planner calculator can handle the thaw, brine, and cook timing for you.

Burn Barrel vs. Trash Barrel vs. Incinerator

“Burn barrel” can mean very different things. For barbecue, that distinction matters.

• BBQ burn barrel: Used only for clean hardwood, with the goal of making hot coals for cooking. Usually an open-top drum with vents and a coal door. When managed carefully, it’s treated as a cooking fire and may be exempt from some open-burn rules. Local exemptions vary, so always check how your city, county, or state classifies a burn barrel used for making coals.
  
  For example, South Carolina’s DHEC regulation 61-62.2 allows open burning “in connection with the preparation of food for immediate consumption” while still prohibiting burning household garbage and many other materials.
• Backyard trash barrel: Used to burn mixed household garbage like plastic, paper, and packaging. These fires burn cooler and oxygen-starved, creating thick smoke and toxic pollutants. Open burning of trash in barrels is illegal or heavily restricted in many places because of air-quality and health risks. Because backyard trash barrels burn at low temperatures with little oxygen, agencies warn they can produce more dioxins per pound of garbage than full-scale municipal incinerators.
• Commercial incinerator: A large, engineered furnace that burns waste or biomass at very high temperatures with controlled airflow and scrubbing gear. These are subject to strict regulations and are not backyard tools. 

For barbecue, the rule is simple: never burn trash in a barrel you use for cooking coals, and never use a trash barrel as your coal maker.

Safety, Legality, and Environmental Considerations

Anytime you’re tending an open fire, you’re responsible for it. With a burn barrel, keep these points in mind: 

• Follow local rules. Many states, including South Carolina, ban burning household garbage in barrels and regulate other forms of open burning. Cooking fires that use clean wood are often treated differently, but you should still check local ordinances and forestry guidance before you light up. In South Carolina, for instance, the Forestry Commission requires residents to notify them before most outdoor burns and to clear a firebreak, keep suppression tools on hand, and stay with the fire until it is completely safe.
• Choose a safe spot. Place the barrel on bare dirt or gravel, away from dry grass, structures, vehicles, and low-hanging limbs. If it’s breezy, a spark-arrestor screen over the top helps tame stray embers.
• Have a plan to put it out. Keep a hose, extinguisher, or bucket of sand nearby. Never leave a burning barrel unattended, even “just for a minute.”
• Use seasoned hardwood only. Green wood smokes more and burns less cleanly. Avoid softwoods, treated lumber, and anything painted or glued.
• Respect the smoke. Even clean wood smoke carries fine particles that can bother neighbors or those with asthma. If your smoke is thick and drifting across property lines, adjust your airflow or fuel and be considerate.

Used properly, a burn barrel is a legal and valued part of barbecue culture in many places. Used carelessly, it can be a nuisance or a hazard.

How to Build a Burn Barrel for BBQ

The concept is not rocket science. Before we get into step-by-step directions, which seem to make everything look more difficult than it is, here’s the simple version: 

• Get a barrel.
• Take the top off.
• Cut out a rectangle at the bottom, wider than your shovel and up almost to the bottom ring.
• Make some holes around the barrel just above the bottom ring and push some rebar (or concrete stakes) in one side and out the other, enough of them crossing over the others to hold wood from falling through.
• Set the barrel on some concrete blocks (optional).
• Start your fire.

While conceptually not complicated, cutting steel to make a burn barrel does require care and experience with power tools. Here’s a more detailed look at the process, based on personal experience with burn barrels and on directions from Sam Jones in Whole Hog BBQ and Rodney Scott in Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ.

Tools

• Safety goggles and gloves
• Drill with a steel step bit
• Reciprocating saw with an 8-inch metal-cutting blade
• Flat-headed shovel with a long handle
• Hammer

Materials

• 55-gallon steel barrel (old or new, but never one that held chemicals, fuel, or industrial products; when in doubt, skip it or consult the supplier)
• Concrete stakes or rebar
• Concrete blocks for a base

Step-by-step directions

1. Suit up. Put on eye protection and gloves before you start cutting or drilling.
2. Open the top. Remove and discard the lid if it’s loose. If the top is solid, drill a starter hole near the edge (in the top surface, not the side) big enough for your saw blade, then cut around the lid. Leave the outer lip of the barrel in place for strength. 
3. Mark the shovel opening. Lay the barrel on its side. Use your shovel to trace a rectangle near the bottom, just below the lower rib. Make the opening slightly wider than the shovel.
4. Cut the opening. Drill a hole in each corner of the rectangle, then use the saw to cut between the holes. Keep the bottom edge of the opening just above the actual floor of the barrel so embers don’t roll out on their own.
5. Drill rebar holes. Stand the barrel upright. Above the lower rib, drill holes for two crisscrossing layers of rebar or stakes: three rods in one direction, two crossing them in the other. Stagger the height slightly so the rods don’t clash when you slide them through. 
6. Install the supports. Push the rebar or stakes through the holes so they form a rack inside the barrel. Check that they’re secure and fairly level.
7. Build a base. Arrange concrete blocks to make a stable stand and set the barrel on top. The goal is a solid platform that gets the shovel door up where you can reach it comfortably.
8. Test burn. Start a small fire with a few splits to confirm draft, watch where sparks go, and check that the barrel feels stable and solid.

Once you’re confident in your setup, you’re ready for a full load of hardwood.

Other Options for Making Coals

If you don’t have the space, time, or need for a full-size burn barrel, there are alternatives:

• Ground fire or block fire: Build a fire on bare ground or inside a small cinder block fire pit and shovel coals from the edge. It works, but throws more sparks and ash. This is what we used for years for our whole hog cooks, as you can see at the end of the pit in the photo below.
• Fire pit: As famed pitmaster Rodney Scott has written in his book, a large cast-iron fire pit can stand in when a barrel isn’t available, as long as it’s wide and deep enough to get a shovel under the burning wood. 
• Charcoal chimneys or burn boxes: For smaller pits and offsets, multiple chimney starters or a welded burn box can generate clean coals on a more compact scale.

These setups follow the same logic: burn wood (or charcoal) somewhere safe, let it fully ignite, then carry the coals to where you’re cooking.

Burn Barrel Safety Tips

As with any live fire, respect the barrel:

• Choose a clear, well-ventilated spot away from flammables.
• Keep extinguishing tools close at hand.
• Never leave the fire unattended.
• Wear appropriate clothing.

As Jones notes, “Dress properly for whole hog cooks. There are sparks everywhere. If they land on your fleece or puffy jacket, those marks won’t wash out. Wear flannel or a wool or canvas jacket that doesn’t easily burn or melt.

“The sparks that don’t land on your clothes and burn holes in them become ash dust, and it’s everywhere. Wear light gray clothes and a hat to blend in, but you should still expect a few dandruff jokes.”

Treat the burn barrel as both a tool and a responsibility. If you’re willing to put in the work to tend it through the night, it will reward you with the kind of coals that make whole hog and other live-fire cooks something special.

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