This has been a very busy week, but I did get to play a bit. The first thing I did was load up a full row of pellets into the
AMNPS and load it in the mailbox. I wanted to confirm that my problem still existed....it did. Next I put some pellets in the blender and reduced them to powder. The only difficulty with this method was keeping the stuff in the
AMNPS. I put a tray under the
AMNPS to catch what fell through and then poured it back in. I had to repeat this 5-6 times until the larger pieces formed a bed and the dust and powder stayed in. This method was the most trouble, but it produced the best results by far. The smoke it produced was thin, light blue, and smelled sweet and delicious. My wife even commented on how good it smelled. I loaded more nuts into the smoker and after 30 minutes i could barely detect smoke flavor. I checked them every hour for another 6 hours, which is when the
AMNPS burned itself out. The resulting peanuts are delicious, so much so that it made me wish I had done a full batch. They have a mild smoke flavor with absolutely no bitterness or harshness. I want to try this method with cheese now as I bet it would be delicious right out of the smoker this way. It's supposed to be cool on Friday, so hopefully I can give it a try then.
The next thing I need to do is make/find a stand for the smoker so it can be higher above the mailbox. Then I can see about replacing the flexible ducting with stove pipe. Those things combined might remove the need for an exhaust fan. Thanks again for all your help!
I love tinkering with stuff, and I"m really enjoying this hobby.