Hey guys,
First of all I built this fridge smoker at least 20 years ago. It has literally smoked hundereds of pounds of fish, jerky and cheese over its life. There is no plastic in this unit anywhere . The only plastic that was in it was the inside door skin and flashing between inner liner and outside case. Which all of this I replaced with aluminum and SS.
I’ve never made sausage or snack sticks. Since now retired I want to give this a try. Also have a lot of game meat available. For all the years the smoker had a single 1100 watt hot plate with cast iron pan for smoking chips. It was controlled by a manual bulb style thermostat. Added the cold smoke box on the side for Amzen pellet tray a few years ago for cheese and cold smoking salmon. Does a great job on the cold smoke salmon.
So I decided to give the old girl a re do - upgrade. Want to try and minimize temp fluctuations and control temp better. First I added a new 1700 watt 2 burner hot plate for faster temp recovery wired direct bypassing controls on hot plate. A cheaper digital controller (Baytite) 10 amp feeding A 25 amp relay. The max temp on this controller is 230. Which I never plan on going over. If this controller doesn’t last or work I’ll replace with something better. Or if I decide I want to go above max temps.
Gave it a test run. The temp fluctuations were much better. Set at 180 the temp fluctuation on down side were only about 3 degrees and on up to 5 on the up side when plate shut off it continued to climb a bit. Which I figured would happen.
Anyway now I want to add a circulation fan for more constant heat top to bottom. I got a convection oven fan in photos included for a good price from local appliance store. I also have the fan cover.
My guestion for you pro’s is where to mount fan in smoker. In pics you’ll see by the red circles where I’d like to mount it. Rather mount it in the lower spot if that would work ok as it be an easier mount spot and in case I want to add more trays above. But would like to know your thoughts on this circulation fan idea.
Thanks
First of all I built this fridge smoker at least 20 years ago. It has literally smoked hundereds of pounds of fish, jerky and cheese over its life. There is no plastic in this unit anywhere . The only plastic that was in it was the inside door skin and flashing between inner liner and outside case. Which all of this I replaced with aluminum and SS.
I’ve never made sausage or snack sticks. Since now retired I want to give this a try. Also have a lot of game meat available. For all the years the smoker had a single 1100 watt hot plate with cast iron pan for smoking chips. It was controlled by a manual bulb style thermostat. Added the cold smoke box on the side for Amzen pellet tray a few years ago for cheese and cold smoking salmon. Does a great job on the cold smoke salmon.
So I decided to give the old girl a re do - upgrade. Want to try and minimize temp fluctuations and control temp better. First I added a new 1700 watt 2 burner hot plate for faster temp recovery wired direct bypassing controls on hot plate. A cheaper digital controller (Baytite) 10 amp feeding A 25 amp relay. The max temp on this controller is 230. Which I never plan on going over. If this controller doesn’t last or work I’ll replace with something better. Or if I decide I want to go above max temps.
Gave it a test run. The temp fluctuations were much better. Set at 180 the temp fluctuation on down side were only about 3 degrees and on up to 5 on the up side when plate shut off it continued to climb a bit. Which I figured would happen.
Anyway now I want to add a circulation fan for more constant heat top to bottom. I got a convection oven fan in photos included for a good price from local appliance store. I also have the fan cover.
My guestion for you pro’s is where to mount fan in smoker. In pics you’ll see by the red circles where I’d like to mount it. Rather mount it in the lower spot if that would work ok as it be an easier mount spot and in case I want to add more trays above. But would like to know your thoughts on this circulation fan idea.
Thanks