welcome

[trout]

Well now you can help me gain back the 10 pounds I lost. :)
I want to try some smoking this year.
I have always wanted to build a cold smoker box. Any ideas????? Thanks

[Salmonsmoker]

Originally posted by trout:
Well now you can help me gain back the 10 pounds I lost. :)
I want to try some smoking this year.
I have always wanted to build a cold smoker box. Any ideas????? Thanks

Trout.

Thats a problem with making good food. It is difficult to keep from eating too much of it.

A cold smoker can be easy to make. The main idea is to keep the fire (thus the source of the smoke) and the food some distance apart.

My first cold smoker was a wooden box that held old oven racks.

Dig a hole large enough for a small fire. This is the smoke generator. Also need a metal lid (metal roofing works well.) From that hole, dig a trench 6 in deep and 4 to 6 feet away from the hole. Place roofing metal over the trench and cover with dirt. (the reason my first smoker burned is because I covered the trench with wood - so that is not advised). At the end of the trench opposite the smoke generator,

1. place 3 bricks oround the end of the trench.
2. place a 1 to 2 foot piece of meatal (again old roofing metal or polebarn metal works well) on the bricks (this will keep the smoke dispursed throughout the smoke-box.)
3. drive 4 2x4 pieces into the ground in a way that they form a frame to hold oven racks.
4. nail together a wooden box (a 2X2 frame with 1/4 in ply over it works well)that fits over the frame.

This is a simple cold smoker.

Drill a small hole in the top of the smoker box and insert a thermometer (temp control is critical in cold smoking.)

Build a small characoal fire in the smoke generator (or put an electric hot plate in there.) When it is hot, place a pan of wood chips on the fire and put a lid on the smoke generator. The smoke will travel down the tunnel (cooling in the process) and flow into the smoker box.

Cheese is a good item to cold smoke (however, cheese melts at about 110 degrees so monitor your temp. You want just enough fire to make smoke but not enough to make much heat.

Last spring my wife got a 22 pound Tom Turkey. I cold smoked the cut-up pieces for about 6 hours using red oak wood chips. (each kind of wood has a distinctive flavor and fits a particular kind of application.)

My wife cooked the breast meat. The rest, I put in a large soup pot and cooked off the bone. It made an excellent smoked-turkey-flavored soup base (goodin each of the following ways):

1 as a cup of hot broth,
2 add some vegies for turkey vegie soup,
3 add some noodles for turkey noodle soup, 4 add some buisquick(If you are interested, I have a recipy for making your own bisquick mix) for turkey & dumplins.

Let me kknow how it works out.

Salmonsmoker

[Salmonsmoker]

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