Thanks Dave, you're welcome to come over if you retire in Mexico.
I ran the smoker yesterday with that cover and it worked pretty well then but a lot of the smoke stayed under the pan. So today I drilled the smaller holes to a little larger size. Now it smokes nice and about 10% to 20% of what the original amount of smoke was (in a few posts up).
I'm smoking during the day starting about 9am until 6 or 7 pm. Then I bring the meats in and put them into the curing chamber.
The biggest reason is to be sanitary. It's at night when the insects come out (you know the nuclear resistant ones). The smoke does very well to keep any and all insects out, but that's when it's smoking. I worry at night that the smoke might stop (because of needing more wood) and little critters might come and visit.
When I'm done smoking at night I can close it up pretty darn air tight because I installed seals on all the doors and vents.
I really do wish I could trust it to keep smoking because at night it's down to 45 and a better temp for cold smoking. But maybe in time I'll get to know exactly how long what size chunks last and start doing some at night also. I need to learn this before the summer comes, I need to smoke year round and do a lot of cold smoked bacon, Lox and cheeses. Last year in the summer I had to smoke cheese at night, but that was in a Elc. Masterbuilt smoker. It was tough to keep it cool enough during the day.
In the morning I'll be slicing up and packaging the bacon for my wife to sell at her store/restaurant I'll take photos of the bacon then both before slicing and after packaging and post the photos about mid afternoon or so.
I ran the smoker yesterday with that cover and it worked pretty well then but a lot of the smoke stayed under the pan. So today I drilled the smaller holes to a little larger size. Now it smokes nice and about 10% to 20% of what the original amount of smoke was (in a few posts up).
I'm smoking during the day starting about 9am until 6 or 7 pm. Then I bring the meats in and put them into the curing chamber.
The biggest reason is to be sanitary. It's at night when the insects come out (you know the nuclear resistant ones). The smoke does very well to keep any and all insects out, but that's when it's smoking. I worry at night that the smoke might stop (because of needing more wood) and little critters might come and visit.
When I'm done smoking at night I can close it up pretty darn air tight because I installed seals on all the doors and vents.
I really do wish I could trust it to keep smoking because at night it's down to 45 and a better temp for cold smoking. But maybe in time I'll get to know exactly how long what size chunks last and start doing some at night also. I need to learn this before the summer comes, I need to smoke year round and do a lot of cold smoked bacon, Lox and cheeses. Last year in the summer I had to smoke cheese at night, but that was in a Elc. Masterbuilt smoker. It was tough to keep it cool enough during the day.
In the morning I'll be slicing up and packaging the bacon for my wife to sell at her store/restaurant I'll take photos of the bacon then both before slicing and after packaging and post the photos about mid afternoon or so.
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