My friend, AlaskanSmokeSignals, talked me into joining this forum. I'm living in Twin Falls, Idaho, its a great little town.
My specialty is beef jerky. I started making beef jerky in the back yard in Tucson in 1980. I built a box on legs out of a couple sheets of plywood and painted the outside black. In the summertime sun, it would get hot enough inside to make beef jerky. After a few runs, I modified an old popcorn popper to make smoke from wood chips. After its wimpy coil burned out, I cut a slot in the side of the popper and used an electric BBQ lighter on chips to make the smoke.
A couple years ago I needed an indoor winter project to keep me busy. So I converted an old 27 cuft upright freezer into an automatic smoker. I put the controls and apparatus on the door. There is also an exhaust fan on the door to remove moisture.
The door has a plenum with a fan in the middle, and rows of holes top & bottom to circulate the smoke all around the box. In front of the lower holes is a couple high-temp air heaters that get up to 900 degrees.
The control box on the front of the door has a thermostat, and switches to set the two fans action for either making jerky, or using the apparatus as a pit smoker.
I quit my journeyman day job 4 years ago (electrician skills came in handy for the new smoker) and now make my living from my website, http://www.beefjerky.com I started the website in 1995 as the original domain registrant, and it slowly grew to making me a living.
I put a detailed post with large photos of my rig here:
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...537#post368537
Cheers!
Greg
Master of www.beefjerky.com
My specialty is beef jerky. I started making beef jerky in the back yard in Tucson in 1980. I built a box on legs out of a couple sheets of plywood and painted the outside black. In the summertime sun, it would get hot enough inside to make beef jerky. After a few runs, I modified an old popcorn popper to make smoke from wood chips. After its wimpy coil burned out, I cut a slot in the side of the popper and used an electric BBQ lighter on chips to make the smoke.
A couple years ago I needed an indoor winter project to keep me busy. So I converted an old 27 cuft upright freezer into an automatic smoker. I put the controls and apparatus on the door. There is also an exhaust fan on the door to remove moisture.
The door has a plenum with a fan in the middle, and rows of holes top & bottom to circulate the smoke all around the box. In front of the lower holes is a couple high-temp air heaters that get up to 900 degrees.
The control box on the front of the door has a thermostat, and switches to set the two fans action for either making jerky, or using the apparatus as a pit smoker.
I quit my journeyman day job 4 years ago (electrician skills came in handy for the new smoker) and now make my living from my website, http://www.beefjerky.com I started the website in 1995 as the original domain registrant, and it slowly grew to making me a living.
I put a detailed post with large photos of my rig here:
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...537#post368537
Cheers!
Greg
Master of www.beefjerky.com
