I was in the same situation as you are, not sure if I "needed" one. I bought one and I love it. It makes your bull so much more versatile.
I've never used it to "cold smoke" but it's extremely handy if you're making a while meal on your smoker.
You have 4 different temps to cook with when you...
I don't have a dedicated shop vac, but I've used a big 32oz cup to just scoop them back out. That works really fast. I just bought 220lb of LJ pellets myself, but none of the char-hickory. I'll be monitoring this thread to see what people think too
I did a similar setup with one of my smoker box grates. I rarely use all three at the same time anyways. I'm actually thinking about making a second one and leaving only one shelf in the smoker box. I'd imagine you can position the bolts so that the gratees will still slide in and out of the...
I'm interested in building mine into an outdoor kitchen too. Did you leave an opening under the fan for it to breath? Any chance you could post pics of how you built it in?
Thanks in advance