First Steps Smoke Box

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gary morris

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Jun 5, 2013
239
12
Birmingham, UK
Hi, I've just made my first cold smoke generator, It won't be the last, but as a first step it works ok so far.  It's a bit flimsy and I have plans afoot to make another, more robust one.





I used two A10 'food' tins that the son got from work, luckily one had a slightly smaller diameter, so the two fitted nicely.  I drilled the top one and installed the 'T' piece and fitted an 'End' piece to one end, after drilling a hole in the centre to accept the thinner diameter tube.  The thinner tube extended 1" past the centre of the 'T' piece and out through the other end.  I made a jacket out of a bit of wood to keep the tube central and sealed it with a bit of modelers clay.  Then fitted some plastic aquarium tube to it, the other end fitted to an 85 litre per hour pump.

I fitted some clear hose to the output end so I could 'hide' the smoke around the side of the shed / greenhouse. (5ft length)

I half filled the lower can with wood dust and a few chips and lit it.   Nothing happened!

I removed the 5ft hose and drilled 5 or 6 'air' holes around the base - something I had forgotten to do!

Re lit it and got about 10 minuets of grey / blue smoke, then it went out.

I decided I needed more air, so I borrowed the sons 12v tyre inflater, very noisy but OK for a test.  I re lit it and obtained a more or less constant stream of grey / blue smoke, left it running for an hour, I would have left it longer but the noise was deafening. 

I got there in the end, more or less.  A new quieter pump is on order.

The outside / ambient temp was 60°f  the temp at the copper outlet end was 81°f  I plan to put a 'cooler' unit on the outlet to see if I can lower the temp some, this may need a better pump, as I think the length of your pipe is connected to how hard you blow.

I now need to fit out my 220 ltr food grade drum, then hopefully I can start smoking!! 
 
Hmmm. Keep going , Gary. I'm gonna watch this one...
popcorn.gif
 
I made some adjustments, as I don't think there's enough air getting in to keep it smoldering and I've got a better pump.


The 4 nozzles go into just 1 pipe.


Placed some wooden spacers to allow air in through the bottom.


Drilled some small holes in one of the scrap lids to allow air flow.  I inserted four bolts a half inch from the top at N S E & W positions to allow the top piece to sit on.

Below is the 'cooler' - yet untried and tested!  There's just over 8ft in length of tube.


Connected to the smoker by an adjustable plastic pipe.


I'm seeing how long it will smoke for, before connecting it to the cooler.  I've toyed with the idea of dropping the cooler in a plastic tub and filling it with cold water, but before that I want to see if it works, lol

So far so good, only 47 Min's.  Will keep checking.  Going to put the connectors on the drum next, I've just finished cleaning and sterilizing it.

Gary
 
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