indoor cold smoking?

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tastysmoke

Newbie
Original poster
Apr 4, 2012
8
10
Virginia
I live in a relatively small apartment, kitchen has no outside ventilation and no window.

I'd love to try to cold smoke salmon or cheese, but I'm not sure how I would do it.

I have a pretty wide ledge (maybe 12 inches) next to my window which opens out, in the living room. The ledge could fit a small box on it... that's be best ventilation I could do unfortunately.

One thing I'm curious about - do you need to vent the smoker, or is it possible to just let it smoke in a sealed container and then bring it outside and open it up?  If I could put some sort of smoke source (maybe that a-maze-n tray or something) inside a cooler or other sealed container, and let it do its thing for a few hours, then take it outside, I could just let the smoke out and be done with it.  But since I know nothing about smoking, maybe this isn't possible/feasible at all.

ideas/suggestions welcome.

Thanks
 
First off -please stop by Roll Call and introduce yourself and update your profile with your location. 

Now lets address the indoor smoking issue - Do NOT DO THIS - smoking needs to be done outside in a well vented area. Carbon Monoxide poisoning is not anything to mess around with. You can cold smoke in a cardboard box - but do it outside  
 
Ok.  Well they sell indoor/oven smokers, so obviously some things can be hot-smoked inside at least.  I don't have a place to leave a smoking apparatus outside for any length of time.
 
If you are talking about a Camerons smoker, they state that you need a good exhaust system to use it.
 
Yes.  Ok I did not see that in the description.  I've also seen these ridiculously expensive pressure cooker smokers for indoor use too.
 
You can't cold smoke with a Cameron smoker.

The following is how I cold smoke inside......
A stainless steel colander flipped over the target helps concentrate the smoke if needed.
My vent hood doesn't vent to the outside, I open the window and use a box fan.

"Small Batch Indoor Cold smoking."

"I spent several weeks looking for a reliable and inexpensive way to do indoor cold smoking.
I settled on rolled cigarettes (LOL) heated with a soldering iron because it’s possible to smoke with pure tea leaves, herbs, sawdust, etc. without the fuel burning up too rapidly.
I invested about $20 in the cigarette roller, papers, soldering iron, spring and clamp."


"Below is some rosemary being rolled."


"Maple smoked butter, rosemary smoked foccacia, tea smoked hard-boiled eggs….the possibilities are endless."


"The cigarette must be able to slide freely inside the spring. The soldering iron raises the temperature inside the cold oven only about 10 degrees above room temperature. Each cigarette smokes for about 30-40 minutes. A vent hood is recommended. My vent hood doesn’t vent to the outside, but that wasn’t a problem with a window open and the ceiling fan running. : )

It's habit forming!!!!!"
 
Last edited:
hey guys, I'm getting into food smoking. I have a little contraption that burns wood chips. There's no vent. The smoke is contained in this little chamber. I only burn chips for a few seconds until the chamber fills and then turn off the stove and leave the food to cold smoke for several minutes. When it turns out right it's pretty awesome. If the food is wet... it's a total disaster. Only works when the food is dry or tacky to the touch. Since everybody doing cold smoking talks about hours and not minutes (which is what I'm doing) I was wondering if maybe I was doing something wrong. I smoked a dry cured pork loin this way and it was pretty awesome. Super smokey. A yellow pellicule formed and not entirely sure why anyone would need hours to cold smoke anything but I'm sure I'm missing something...?
 
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