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My Hot/Cold Smokehouse Build

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mudslinger2

mudslinger2

Fire Starter
Original poster
Sep 5, 2013
34
15
Blackstone Ma
Hi everybody I thought I would Share  my new smokehouse build  with you. I've been working on it for a few weeks now and have the cold smoking Part done.

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The fresh concrete the dog stepped in

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Air operated smoke generation pit

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 Trial run

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Rough cut lumber from local mill

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Walls framed

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Starting to close it up

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Getting there

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Completed shell

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Time for a door

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Time to clean up mess

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First smoke

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Temporary stainless hangers and racks

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 Had  good luck cold smoking  bacon and cheese so far , tried sausages but could not get temp past 145 had to finish inside the house.

Now comes the Hot Smoking,  This weekend I will be starting to insulate with rock wool and covering it with Durock cement board and  the installation of 12 x 12 ceramic floor tiles to cover the inside. For heat I'm using an antique Boston Stove Co Parlor stove with circulation fans for even heat and I'm hoping for a temp of 300.

I will keep you posted and I look forward to posting the rest of the build
 
.....
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.......     I like the cold smoking pit.....  waiting for the hot part now.....     Dave
 
Looks like it's gonna be a Great Hot & Cold smoker!!!

Keep us updated, please!!

Bear
 
Thanks for all the encouragement guys as this is my first smokehouse also, so any do's and don'ts  will be greatly appreciated. Also I got the insulation and cement board on the ceiling today, lit a fire and was able to get the temp to 190 after a half hour so I think I will reach the three hundred mark when completed. Thanks again
 
Got the whole smokehouse insulated and the cement board up this weekend

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Lit a fire and got the temp to 225 in less than a half hour with no circulation fans, but I don't think the stove can put out any more heat. So I will use the wood to bring it up to temp and then switch over to a gas burner to maintain.  The rock wool insulation and cement board are definitely doing their job, but when I opened the door  to check on the fire I loss a lot of heat.

Time to modify the door by splitting it in half so I can load the stove on the bottom and add a pane of tempered glass so I can see what is going on, on top.

Till next time
 
I love the temperd glass idea. You loose a lot of heat when opening the doors on smokers. I cook competition bar b que, and dare someone to open my pit lid while cooking. If you drop your temp and bring it back up to drop again you are changing the process of breaking down the protien.
 
The house looks Awesome!!!
I wouldn't worry about losing heat very much when you open the door, once the Durock gets up to temp it will recover very fast! The Durock becomes one big thermal mass that will just radiate heat for a long time!
 
Here is another though on that old stove.  It looks like the vent is on the back of the stove.  You could also mount it outside the smokehouse and have it feed heat and smoke in through a short straight pipe into the sidewall of the smoke house.   That way you should not loose any heat when adding fire wood.  You would loose any heat that would be radiated from the body of the stove, but compared to the heat from the vent, I think that is negligible anyway.  If you go that route, I would have a piece of pipe on the inside that extended to the approximate center of the smokehouse.  You could friction fit it and take it out for more hanging space when cold smoking.

I also think the fire in the stove would burn better outside as you would have a good fresh air supply.  Inside, eventually you will end up in an oxygen starved situation for any good sized fire in the stove.  That may also be why the temps only went to 225 before topping out.
 
Last edited:
dward51 said:
 
Here is another though on that old stove.  It looks like the vent is on the back of the stove.  You could also mount it outside the smokehouse and have it feed heat and smoke in through a short straight pipe into the sidewall of the smoke house.   That way you should not loose any heat when adding fire wood.  You would loose any heat that would be radiated from the body of the stove, but compared to the heat from the vent, I think that is negligible anyway.  If you go that route, I would have a piece of pipe on the inside that extended to the approximate center of the smokehouse.  You could friction fit it and take it out for more hanging space when cold smoking.

I also think the fire in the stove would burn better outside as you would have a good fresh air supply.  Inside, eventually you will end up in an oxygen starved situation for any good sized fire in the stove.  That may also be why the temps only went to 225 before topping out.
Click to expand...
Your right about it being oxygen starved, the last time I ran it I had to open the bottom door all the way to get it to burn some heavier pieces of wood. I though about running the stove on the outside but it being so small I didn't want to chance cutting a hole in the wall if it doesn't put out enough heat especially when winter hits. I'm looking for another stove  now.
 
Is there a way to pipe fresh air in to the intake on the stove ? If so then maybe put a damper on the outside of the smokehouse in the pipeline
 
What sort of air inlets does the stove have?   I would think if you were using the stove for your heat and smoke source you could make a pipe assembly that you could put over the inlet in the floor for your cold smoke generator.  Just leave the cold smoke chamber open and let it be your external fresh air source.  Just make some sort of piping you could put over that grate to funnel the fresh air to the stove air inlet when you are hot smoking.  I would try that before poking any holes in your smokehouse.  Might as well take advantage of the hole already built in.  Once you pipe the air flow to the stove, heat convection will do the rest of the work for you.  The rising heat from the burning wood will cause air to be sucked in through the fresh air inlet (the cold smoke chamber and piping outside the smokehouse).
 
Last edited:
Hello everyone,

Sorry for the delay in finishing up the smokehouse build, health and business will slow you down. But I'm up and smokin.

Since the last post I have made a few changes in the smoker, I decided I didn't need all that space so I cut it down to 4ft deep x 5ft wide with a 6ft ceiling height. Well I finally got it all tiled and for the separation I used a piece of tempered glass that I had kicking around and built a full view door 3ft x 6ft

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I got rid of the wood stove idea it was impossible to control the temperature,  I got a 50000 btu  turkey fryer fully adjustible at a yard sale and that seems to work great so far.

The hanging sticks are stainless steel and they were Hand rails off a fire truck

.

The racks are from ebay what a score, they are 24 inches by 34 inches in great shape for 15 buck apiece

.

I hung the racks on chains because I didn't want to drill all kinds of holes in the tile and they come right off with a karabiner

.

Air intake comes in from the cold smoking port in the floor.

Exhaust is fully mechanical with a 80 cfm fan and a three speed motor controller to prevent any condensation from forming, drying meats and  to take away the stale smoke

Even heat though out the smoker comes from a 40 cfm fan with a three speed motor controller from a convection oven.

Practice run #1          Italian, Polish and Bacon sausage

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Practice run #2   10 lbs of jerky

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Looking through the full view watching it dry

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On the smoke

That's it for now, I will be starting a new thread in smoking bacon shortly stay tuned.

Mudslinger
 
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