Bitter taste when cold smoking with homemade smoke generator

[tallbm]

I did try that with a blower fan but i attached it to blow clean air inside of my curing chamber instead of pulling it out.

The solution is to pull the smoke out. The issue is smoke staying inside too long and blowing more smoke in is not really the same as the smoke coming out the way you want it to.

As for the mailbox mod I use one like in your picture with the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker tray. Here is mine:



The tray of burning pellets goes inside my mailbox mod.

 

[Brokenhandle]

Another thing to keep in mind... especially when cold smoking cheese... give it time to rest. Like at least 2 weeks to a month. It will make a big difference.
Good luck and keep trying... you'll get there!

Ryan

 

[JckDanls 07]

So I reread the original post and didn't see where you said how long you smoked the cheese for?

Pending on how heavy the smoke is will dictate how long to smoke for.. most are happy between 1-3 hrs of smoking and then resting in fridge vacuum sealed for a minimum of 2 weeks... Longer is better

 

[bill1]

Let me ask our young Scandinavian friend a couple more questions...how long is your smoke generator running? Are you re-fueling it, if so how often? One theory is that you might be burning, not smoking, your fuel and that's giving the off-flavor. I also assume yours is a venturi-based generator so the smaller pipe on your blue generator is attached to an air pump of some sort? (A larger output pipe will probably draw better then too.)

The other question is what is that pretty blue crucible you're using? It looks like annodized aluminum. Is there coating on the inside for use as a water bottle? That could be your entire problem. You really want your "firebox" to be non-reactive at the temps it will see. It needs to have a melting point higher than typical orange flame temperatures which is about 1200C (or ~2200F for us 'Mericans) so aluminum isn't a great choice even with no coatings on it. You may want to look inside and see if you don't have aluminum oxide powder forming in there.

 

[elquil]

The solution is to pull the smoke out. The issue is smoke staying inside too long and blowing more smoke in is not really the same as the smoke coming out the way you want it to.

As for the mailbox mod I use one like in your picture with the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker tray. Here is mine:
View attachment 663069View attachment 663070
View attachment 663071

The tray of burning pellets goes inside my mailbox mod.

Thanks a lot! I will look into that option then. It seems like most people are recommending this type of cold smoker over one with a fan or air pump. how come? is this a safer option because the wood is burning at a lower temp?

 

[elquil]

Another thing to keep in mind... especially when cold smoking cheese... give it time to rest. Like at least 2 weeks to a month. It will make a big difference.
Good luck and keep trying... you'll get there!

Ryan

I have it in the fridge now resting and ill try it in a couple weeks, thanks a lot!

 

[elquil]

So I reread the original post and didn't see where you said how long you smoked the cheese for?

Pending on how heavy the smoke is will dictate how long to smoke for.. most are happy between 1-3 hrs of smoking and then resting in fridge vacuum sealed for a minimum of 2 weeks... Longer is better

I've tried everything from 20 minutes to an hour. I've also tried sliced pieces of charcutier and bologna just to try it out for like 10-15 minutes and they were basically inedible after. Yesterday i tried a whole sausage that made, I smoked it for around 1-2 hours and it kinda had that bitter Smokey smell when I took it out but it completely disappeared after I cooked it.

 

[elquil]

Let me ask our young Scandinavian friend a couple more questions...how long is your smoke generator running? Are you re-fueling it, if so how often? One theory is that you might be burning, not smoking, your fuel and that's giving the off-flavor. I also assume yours is a venturi-based generator so the smaller pipe on your blue generator is attached to an air pump of some sort? (A larger output pipe will probably draw better then too.)

The other question is what is that pretty blue crucible you're using? It looks like annodized aluminum. Is there coating on the inside for use as a water bottle? That could be your entire problem. You really want your "firebox" to be non-reactive at the temps it will see. It needs to have a melting point higher than typical orange flame temperatures which is about 1200C (or ~2200F for us 'Mericans) so aluminum isn't a great choice even with no coatings on it. You may want to look inside and see if you don't have aluminum oxide powder forming in there.

I have never had it run for more than a couple hours. once I had it run for 4 hours maybe but at that time I was not smoking anything, i was just trying it out and seeing if it would stay lit and that time I did re-fule it. as I mentioned to jck just before this I've tried everything from sliced pieces of meat and cheese for a couple of minutes to larger chunks of both. but I've never had to re-fule it at that time because it wasn't fir too long. when it comes to burning the fuel I've tried both smaller air pump that wasn't putting out too much smoke and sometimes it had problems staying lit to larger fans that would heat up the whole canister. yes, you're correct, the smaller pipe is attached to an air pump and someone else mentioned the pipe size and I will change that. After some more researching of other builds out there I've seen some people have a lot longer output pipes. one guy had a pretty detailed build and i thing he said his pipe was 16 inches, he also had condensation jars attached to it. How come the commercial cold smoke generators look so simple ?

(this is the video i was talking about)


The blue crucible is an old water bottle. I never thought about any possible coating on the inside, I just thought that it would be safe since it's food grade. i did try checking inside it but I can't see much, its mostly just black. I am trying to make this as cheap as possible and that why I chose that water bottle but maybe it would be better to just get a smoke maze and use it in my bbq?

 

[elquil]

And I would like to thank everyone for all the feedback! I've been trying to solve this on my own for a long while now and it's very frustrating.

 

[tallbm]

Thanks a lot! I will look into that option then. It seems like most people are recommending this type of cold smoker over one with a fan or air pump. how come? is this a safer option because the wood is burning at a lower temp?

The tray you see in my picture was designed to produce perfect smoke. Not smoke that is too thick.

Also the mailbox mod helps avoid creating more heat than you want AND it also provides some distance for the smoke to travel and clean more of the bad creosote out of the smoke.

The design to pull air/smoke out of the smoker works well because the stale smoke problem is caused by smoking staying in the smoker too long without oxygen and not leaving the smoker.
So blowing smoke in just puts more smoke in the smoker, but is not the same as remove the existing smoke that is inside.

The device I show you is constantly pulling smoke out out of the smoker.
That fan based device pulling the smoke up and out with the mailbox mod, also helps provide suction all the way down to where the pellets are burning. So the device is pulling smoke and air from the bottom where smoke is created then into the smoker, and finally out of the smoker.

With all of that said, the solution I have found is to pull all/any smoke out. Not blow smoke in and hope that pushes the bad smoke out.
That is the difference between the two approaches and it seems to matter :)