My annual cold smoking whine/solution

[Jorge]

I finally found a cold day last year to cold smoke some cheese in Texas. Not bad, but since I was depending on mother nature I've been thinking about another solution. Parrothead gave me the idea in one of his posts.

I just ordered a Bradley smoke generator. My plan is to take an old ECB in the garage and use that for the smoke chamber. The smoke generator will be connected using a flexible dryer vent hose.

I know I'll still need the cooler days, but at least now I won't have to wait for one of our two weeks of sub 50* weather per year.

Thoughts or suggestions?

 

[BrooklynQ]

Cmon up! It's gettig cold.

 

[Kevin]

25* this morning and farkin snow.
This will sound silly and too simple but it works for cooling molds at work. Point a fan at the smoke box.

 

[jt]

Frost the last couple mornings so my thought is KMA! :twisted:

Suggestions? Wacky maybe but what about an old upright freezer? Gotta figure out oxygen issues... Or use Kevin's idea and combine it with some dry ice...

 

[Ron_L]

I've never tried this, but I know guys who have... Take a metal pan (ECB Charcoal pan might work and fill it with ice and put it in the bottom of the cooker. My cookshack has a cold smoke plate that insulates the firebox from the rest of the chamber while letting smoke pass, but the chamber still gets up to 100 degrees or so, so a lot of Cookshack owners use a catering pan full of ice above the cold smoke plate to keep the chamber cooler.

 

[jgh1204]

Please send some cool weather my way! Supposed to be 90 again today.

 

[Bill-Chicago]

Check HERE for a WSM Mod for cold smoking

 

[G$]

Check HERE for a WSM Mod for cold smoking

But Bill, is there a mod to make the weather cold?

 

[jt]

But Bill, is there a mod to make the weather cold?

Here ya go...

 

[Ron_L]

Move to Chicago

 

[Jorge]

Lots of good ideas, and info. Thanks!

 

[Bill-Chicago]

Jorge
I think you need to seal off the door, like in the WSM pictures, but this just came to me.

The biggest problem with the ECB will be the bottom.

My ECB bottom has a "lip" to it (I think) where the sheet steel is rolled back to form the edge.

This would be perfect to hold a circular piece of sheet metal, closing off the bottom. I would take it one step further and attach an aluminum angle vent to that with a hole right in the middle of it.

The water pan would be removed in a cold smoke environment, so having the smoke come right up the middle could be an advantage.

We have sump pumps in our sub basements up here, and I know there is an entire line of both sheet steel and rubber circular sump pump covers that might just pop right into the bottom, with holes already cut into them for the ejector pump pipe. Rubber would not be a problem in a cold smoke environment.

Does this make sense, or am I over thinking this mod?

 

[Bill-Chicago]

quick search found a 3 holer, but I have a 2 and a 1 in my basement (1 sump pump, one ejector pump)

 

[Jorge]

Something for me to think about Bill.

Right now the plan is to attach the hose to the bottom section for the first run, and use foil to handle any gaps to see if this thing is worth the effort. I'm cutting right into the side to keep it simple. Later on I've thought about some kind of plate similar to that with more, smaller holes to spread the limited heat and smoke more evenly. Based on Ron's post I'm leaving the door alone, so that I can add ice to a water pan if that option works down here.

 

[wnkt]

A person on another forum had an idea to use a small piece of pipe to hold maybe one or two lumps of charcoal and a chunk of wood. That way it will be a very small output of heat for the amount of smoke. But being in Texas....a big black painted pit will still be over 100 degrees in the sun on a cool day.

 

[SmokeInDaEye]

Temps?

I just made a makeshift cold smoker and have some bacon/pork belly and cheese going now. It's getting a nice flow of smoke and is sitting at about 65*.

Is that too low?!! The WSM site said cold smoking is usually done between 80-90*.

 

[SmokeInDaEye]

So I smoked the 5# hunk of pork belly, some mozarella, and some xtra sharp cheddar for about 4 hours at 58-60* in the makeshift smoker I created. It all turned out amazing! Wrapped the bacon to cool and will probably freeze it for beans some other time. Here's pics of the $3 smoker made of a disposable pan with tight fiting aluminum lid and a vent from the smoker.

 

[bbqpigskin]

This is amazing! Nice Job!

 

[brdbbq]

What is the Pork Belly for ?

 

[SmokeInDaEye]

What is the Pork Belly for ?

I brined the pork belly for 24 hours in salt, sugar, water, mollasses, and apple juice. Cold smoked it for four hours using apple and hickory and am going to make bacon out of most of it.

Planning on freezing it enough tonight (45 minutes or so) so that it's easy to slice, then wrapping the slices to cook later. I may save some larger pieces for beans next weekend, as well.