Building a Smoker

[NEMichsportsman]

:confused:

Can anyone give me any ideas about how to go about accomplishing this? A friend of mine has given me a chest style freezer that is stainless steel lined so I think it would work ok, but I dont know where to go from there?

jp

[Salmonsmoker]

I once build a smoker out of an upright frige with a metal liner. It worked very well for many years - finally the door-hinges rusted and the door fell off.

A chest-type freezer is another item. It will be limited by shelf-space. In other words, I am not sure where you will put the items that will be smoked....no shelf space..... unless you stand it on end and weld some shelf-mounting brackets onto the sides. Shelf or rack space in the smoker is generally a problem. I usually have more to go in the smoker than I have shelf or rack space for. With a chest freezer, this would be even more of a problem and you would need a lot more smoke and/or smoke and heat to provide any consistency to your process.

For the frige, I had to cut a hole in the bottom for smoke. Then I put a trench in the ground that ran to a fire-pit a few feet away. I also had to add a smoke stack with a cover and a vented cover on the fire pit. This allowed for total draft, temperature, and smoke control. Then - when I wanted cold smoke, I put fire in the pit and piped it into the smoker. When I wanted hot smoke, I did the same and also put characoal in the bottom of the firge for heat. The amount of characoal, and the draft controls, gave me total discression as to temperature/time for smoking or smoke-cooking.

Rather than trying to adapt a chest freezer, my personal opinion is that you need to start with a metal-lined upright frig. This will give better results.

You might try keeping fish worms in the chest freezer. Lay it on its back and bury it up to within a few inches of the top, then fill it with good dirt and put in some worms or night crawlers. If you feed and water them, they will multiply and keep you in fish bait.

Hope this helps.

Salmonsmoker

[Salmonsmoker]

Making Current

[BOSSTOM]

I just found out that my neighbor received a smoker (Brinkmann) a couple of years ago as a XMAS gift and has only used it once. He said I can use it provided I share some of the finished product with him :). All that I need to do now is come up with a recipe, and I'm on my way. I'm going to try and give the snack stick thing a whirl. The problem here is that my kids eat them faster than they can be defrosted.

[Salmonsmoker]

Bosstom,

Where to start depends on kind of Brinkman smoker. If it is a water smoker, then it will work well for a smoke oven but not so good for cold-smoke rescipies like sticks.

I would start with something like chicken and experiment with it.

Here's a simple and quick smoked chicken recipe:

Start with 1/2 of a fryer per person to be served. (I usually get whole fryers and just cut them in half with a cleaver.)

Put the meat in a brine of 4 parts vinegar, 4 parts water, and 1 part seasoned salt (2 cups vinegar, 2 cups water, 1/2 cup Seasoned Salt) and refrigerate over night (a ziplock bag works well for this.)

The next day, take the chicken out of the brine, rinse quickly under running water, and pat dry. Brush on a liberal coat of olive oil and put it in the smoker. Bake until done (at 180 degrees it will take 3 to 4 hours if you have many pieces of chicken). Keep a good amount of smoke going (I like to mix 3/4 Red Oak sawdust with 1/4 Shag Bark Hickory bark)

Once you have results (on a consistant basis) that you like, then try it on game meat.

For sausages, I would experiment on ground beef to perfect the recipe, then use the game meat. Greg "Sausageman" is your best resource for information about making the sausage sticks.