Cold smoke creosote

[James202]

Hi so I have been trying all different ways to cold smoke and I'm at the point to where I have my MES 30 hooked to the mailbox mod with 8' of drier hose and a AMNPS with 3 holes drilled into the mailbox door. While smoking I still get a creosote smell and taste to my cheese. I also have my AMNPS elevated in the mailbox and at times I've tried putting a fan on exhaust and putting it on the vent of the MES. Does anyone have any suggestions to what I may be doing wrong? Thanks

 

[SmokinVOLfan]

I don't use the mailbox mod. I put the amnps in my mes40 and pull the chip tray out about halfway in the dump position and haven't had a problem keeping it lit. Nice TBS. Used it for cheese yesterday.

Most of the mailbox mods I have seen have the smoker elevated and the mailbox underneath it. I am no expert by any means but maybe try shortening you're dryer hose and elevating the smoker and making sure the top vent is all the way open.

The mailbox mod guys might be able to answer better than I can!

 

[daveomak]

Is the exhaust wide open... Looks cold there, did you preheat the smoker so it was above ambient and keep it there during the smoke ??? Good draft is important...

 

[James202]

Is the exhaust wide open... Looks cold there, did you preheat the smoker so it was above ambient and keep it there during the smoke ??? Good draft is important...

My vent is open all they way and yes it is cold out I didn't pre heat the smoker. I'm a little clueless on the pre heat cause I thought we want the smoker cold could you give me some insight on the pre heat. Like do I pre heat with the AMNPS smoking in the mailbox how hot do I want to pre heat to and once I put the cheese in is it fine to let the smoker cool back down? Thanks alot

 

[johnmeyer]

There have been dozens of threads in the past year on this very subject. Look for posts by "Mr. T." Here is one of them.

Mr. T. Smoked Cheese

 

[gmc2003]

Are you trying to achieve eatable cheese right out of the smoker? If you are then you may want to try dust, it burns cleaner then pellets(works in tray only). If this is your goal then as an experiment I would try a block of cheese and do a taste test at the hour one mark, then hour two and so on. Until I found the sweet spot. You may just be experiencing over smoked cheese. For the experiment you can also go every half hour.

Chris

 

[daveomak]

Preheating the smoker is necessary to get a draft started... and depending on the ambient temperature, periodic turning the heat on to maintain air flow will be necessary... cold air is heavier than warm air... once the smoker cools off, the heavier cold air will stop the air flow, causing stale smoke and creosote formation from lack of "complete" combustion of the pellets...
You should get the cheese up to "house" temperature before smoking also... Cold cheese will cause condensate to form on the exterior, subsequently moisture, the smoke, and you now will have "acid rain" on the surface of the cheese.. A bitter acid layer that tastes really bad....

 

[James202]

I have been letting it get to room temp i read that on here and the air temp is making sense but for example i like in central new york today its about 30 out what do you think would be a good starting point for the pre heat temp? Thanks for the help

 

[daveomak]

Around 80-100 F to get the thermal mass of the smoker up.. Then with the heat off, the smoker temp will drop to around 60 F... you may have to turn the heat on periodically to keep the temp up above ambient to around 60 ish...
I was cold smoking bacon... I had my smoker warmed up and smoke flowing... Put the bellies in and they were about 45 deg. F... The smoke started flowing out the door of the MB... The cold air, from the cold bellies, reversed the air flow through the smoker.. It's physics... tweaking and tinkering are in order... I had to heat the bellies up to about 70 deg. F to keep the smoke flowing...
One solution would be to put the AMNPS inside the smoker body... The heat from the AMNPS should warm the smoker up about 20 deg. F above ambient.. It will be necessary to preheat the smoker with the element to make sure it stays above ambient... then you shouldn't need electric heat... maybe...

 

[johnmeyer]

Some people use a fan or similar device to pull or push the smoke through the smoker. I've given up on cold smoking because I never got very good results, but if I were to try again, I'd definitely hook up a fan.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with heating the enclosure slightly in order to encourage convection, and I am in no way disagreeing with Dave's advice. However, if you have to keep re-heating, that becomes "fiddly," and it also increases the chance of an "uh-oh" moment when you realize you forgot to turn off the heat, and you come back to find a puddle of cheese at the bottom of the smoker.

There are lots of posts about using fans for cold smokes, and you should be able to find these using the search button in this forum.

[edit] Here are two cold smoke fan posts from the past three months:

MES Cold Smoking

Another MES Mod - Cold Smoker Assist!!

 

[James202]

I understand the concept of the fans I’ve had bad results off the fans I had a fan pushing and pulling air and still had to much smoke build. I also tried just pushing or just pulling and niether worked so I'm just tring another way I am going to give the heat attempt then I might hold off on cold smoking for a little bit.

 

[johnmeyer]

I understand how you could get too much of everything if you hooked some of these muffin fans directly to the MES output vent. However, in those posts I provided, you'll see that quite a few people do nothing more than blow the fan across the open vent. This creates a very mild Venturi Effect which is so slight that I don't think it would cause any big problems, but it should be enough to ensure that the smoke moves through the smoker and doesn't just sit there, and certainly doesn't backdraft.

Hopefully you have taken the time to read some of the posts I provided where Mr. T and others talk about how to prepare the cheese and how to modify the smoke to keep from getting that lip-numbing, ashtray taste. I had to throw out several batches of cheese when I tried doing this, so I know how bad it can be. "I feel your pain."

Also, even with all of my mods, and even after reading all the stuff I linked to (and a LOT more), I am still not happy with any smoked cheese I've ever made, and am not going to bother anymore. Every other thing I smoke is now turning out really well, so if one or two things don't work, I'm simply not going to bother.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I am not convinced that all of the people who claim success when smoking cheese are actually getting results that are all that great. Many of them still talk about letting the cheese sit in the fridge for a month or so to "mellow" to the point where they can enjoy eating it. From everything I've read, this is a sure sign that they actually didn't do a very good job smoking it, because the stuff should taste good right away, just like pretty much everything else you smoke.

 

[indaswamp]

Add an extension to your exhaust vent for more draft....

 

[Rings Я Us]

I would do it when you don't need any heat and just run the smoke. 70 degrees or 60 degrees weather.

 

[James202]

Add an extension to your exhaust vent for more draft....

How much of an extension are you thinking I’ve seen like tin cans is it just a small extension or the bigger the better?

 

[indaswamp]

Taller the better...within reason of course. It is also a function of the differential between smoker temp. and ambient temperature. Higher the differential, the better draft. Of course, you can go so high that the smoker exhaust cools too much too fast and that will form a cold plug of air that will slow draft.

 

[SonnyE]

I'm using a 24" X 3" single wall, snap lock duct pipe for my vent pipe. Seen HERE.
I used an 8' aluminum dryer vent pipe, fully extended, from my MOD box to my inlet elbow, for cooling the smoke.

I got an Inkbird Brand controller to use two ways: For Sous Vide on a small crock pot. And as a below 100 (MES lower limit) heater control. Box stock it does +/- 3 degrees. Set to 1 degree, it typically runs +/- a single degree of set point.
Plenty tight enough for my needs.

And added a bypass to my MES 30 so I can select Normal or Bypassed Control of my MES 30 element. That way I can control the temperature accurately below 100 degrees.
You could also do this using the Auber controller and modifications well documented here on SMF.

But the point is to try and keep the MES in range for 'cold' smoking. For my use, I want 70-80 degrees inside my MES for my fish smoking. Generally, my cold smoking is done overnight for cooler ambient temperatures.
By adding a box fan behind my rig-a-ma-jig MOD and MES 30, on low, I've been able to keep the heat inside the MES at 2-3 degrees above the ambient air temperature in tests.
I'm considering plugging my fan into the cooling cycle of the Inkbird, as well as the MES 30 heating into the heating plug to further automate the temperature control for my Cold Smoking.
So, much less "By guess and By golly" as in the past for me. With the AMNPS doing a steady, even, 11 hours of smoke, Sweet dreams of cold smoked goodness fill my noggin.

 

[Bearcarver]

Definitely go to Dust, instead of Pellets when cold smoking Cheese.
Dust doesn't need or produce as much heat as Pellets.

Bear

 

[daveomak]

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/making-dust-from-pellets.271863/