Long time lurker question...

[IronSoul]

Little about me... I've been bbq'ing for my entire life. Literally. My family owns a smokehouse/fish-house on the great lakes in northern michigan. I've done everything from wild game on up, sausages, hams, bacon, poultry, etc etc etc. I own 2 smokers and a hibachi all custom built by myself, so this isn't my first rodeo. But for the life of me I cannot seem to solve this issue. A couple years ago we moved from michigan to alabama (wife, son & myself). Going from a relatively low humidity to an extremely high humidity all year. So now when cold smoking jerky I'm having a huge issue with condensation forming and droplets falling on the meat. Unfortunately that means it's picking up any "dirt" from the walls of the smoker and flavoring the meat with it. Can't be having that. Here's my process...
I prefer a thicker cut of jerky (chewy inside), so the meat gets cut roughly 1/2" by 1" strips with the grain (old school). Into a brine solution for a minimum of 5 days. Then everything comes out, gets pat dried and laid out on racks. Fire up the cold smoker (oak) and it's all cold to start with for about the first 8 hours. Let the meat soak up as much smoke as possible and then gradually start to warm up to a max of 145-150f. Never any higher. I just want to finish drying the meat but not cook it. Problem is, the humidity down here is so damn high no matter what I do condensation seems to form. I try to push as much air through as possible since that seems to help, but I also don't want to lose to much heat at the end for the final drying process.
Cheese itself has it's own challenges down here because of the 3/4 year summers lol So when I do cheese it has to be in what they call the "winter" down here. The rest of the year the cheese will start to sweat within 10 minutes and melt by 15 just in the outside air temps. On average it hits about 80-90% humidity year round, even when it's "cold" out. Is airflow the only real option? Try to keep it moving as much as possible to draw out as much humidity as possible? The heat inside vs. the cold outside is going to be a huge fight I can see to overcome. So any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JLeonard]

Welcome to the board. As a citizen of the sweaty South here in Mississippi I can understand where your coming from. Hang tight, some of the sausage/jerky makers here will chime in shortly.
Jim

 

[73saint]

I do a lot of cold smoking but don't really have the issue of condensation for whatever reason. Just spitballing but what about a de-humidifier?

 

[PolishDeli]

I've struggled with this myself. Im no pro at this, but heres my $.02.

Plan ahead and keep an eye on the weather.

I've found that temp outside the chamber vs temp inside is critical. Some people put ice in the chamber for cold smoking, but in my experience this causes a pool of smoke to build up and ashtray flavored food. Hot air rises, cold air sinks. So the smoke needs to be warmer than the ambient air.

So, i wait for a cold day/night.
My smokers minimum temp is 100F. Thats too high.
So i use a cheap single burner electric cooktop in the smoker for heat and a ITC-1000F to control the temp. Smoker temp needs to be at least 5°F > outside for a decent draft.

Also, i let the food rest in the smoker while the temps stabilize before adding the smoke. Not doing this causes smoke to condense on the food. Again causing ashtray flavors.

 

[SmokingUPnorth]

Welcome. are you in the UP? if so what part

 

[IronSoul]

I do a lot of cold smoking but don't really have the issue of condensation for whatever reason. Just spitballing but what about a de-humidifier?

Down here there isn't a de-humidifier strong enough to work against the humidity levels here. Trust me, i wasn't joking about the 90%+ humidity. Anybody from the very south will attest to what it can be like here so there's no way to remove enough of it to change anything.

I've struggled with this myself. Im no pro at this, but heres my $.02.

Plan ahead and keep an eye on the weather.

I've found that temp outside the chamber vs temp inside is critical. Some people put ice in the chamber for cold smoking, but in my experience this causes a pool of smoke to build up and ashtray flavored food. Hot air rises, cold air sinks. So the smoke needs to be warmer than the ambient air.

So, i wait for a cold day/night.
My smokers minimum temp is 100F. Thats too high.
So i use a cheap single burner electric cooktop in the smoker for heat and a ITC-1000F to control the temp. Smoker temp needs to be at least 5°F > outside for a decent draft.

Also, i let the food rest in the smoker while the temps stabilize before adding the smoke. Not doing this causes smoke to condense on the food. Again causing ashtray flavors.

My little external firebox bumps the temp up enough to keep a good draft flowing, but unfortunately it seems to be worse when I increase the heat in order to actually start the drying process. Think I may try a small 120mm pc fan to see if that may help keep enough air moving so that it doesn't build up too much condensation inside the chamber. There's 5 racks of meat stacked on top of each other, so if it drips on one, it'll eventually reach all of them. The other thought was to cover the top rack in foil and maybe use that to deflect some of the moisture. But given the surface tension of water droplets, it'd likely just work it's way to the underside and drop when it's weight increased enough. Not really solving the problem, just temporarily delaying it.

Welcome. are you in the UP? if so what part

I grew up in Mackinaw City, graduated highschool in TC but had family/friends who lived in the UP and have done quite a bit of hunting up in that area. Spent the last 20 years living near detroit as prototype fabricator/mechanical engineer. What part of the UP are you from?

Appreciate the thoughts, hopefully somebody from the south who's run into this problem has a few more ideas. Thermal properties of the air here are pretty weird on cold days. I've never been around 45f with 80% humidity before. Where I grew up that means it's snowing lol Thought the weather in michigan was weird...this place is even more so lol

 

[73saint]

Yeah trust me, I think it's just as bad where I am. I just don't have those issues you are talking about. I cold smoke all year long

 

[kmmamm]

A couple things come to mind. First, can you increase the pitch on the roof/ceiling of the smoker so the condensation will roll down on to the walls into a catch pan or drain instead of dripping? Second don‘t discount the dehumidifier idea...rig it so that it blows the drier outlet air into an enclosed box ( something like an old chest cooler would be ideal) then rig your smoker inlet so that it is pulling air from the same box. You probably will have to rig a balancing valve of sorts to keep the dehumidifier from over pressurizing the box causing the dehumidifier to ice-up. The air doesn’t have to be bone dry, just a bit drier than the ambient thereby allowing it to pull moister out of the box.

 

[IronSoul]

A couple things come to mind. First, can you increase the pitch on the roof/ceiling of the smoker so the condensation will roll down on to the walls into a catch pan or drain instead of dripping? Second don‘t discount the dehumidifier idea...rig it so that it blows the drier outlet air into an enclosed box ( something like an old chest cooler would be ideal) then rig your smoker inlet so that it is pulling air from the same box. You probably will have to rig a balancing valve of sorts to keep the dehumidifier from over pressurizing the box causing the dehumidifier to ice-up. The air doesn’t have to be bone dry, just a bit drier than the ambient thereby allowing it to pull moister out of the box.

Was thinking about something like that. Maybe using two sources. One for the cold smoke and do a separate one for the heat. Maybe a charcoal box or something. I've tried tilting it so that everything runs one way, but ultimately one drop landing on a strip of meat pretty much means it's ruined. So I'm shooting for minimum spoilage. I've got a few ideas and appreciate the input. For over 30 years I've been cold/hot smoking and it's only since moving here that I've ever run into this issue. Even running a constant 250f in a -20 michigan winter day hasn't tripped me up. So I'm finding it very frustrating that something this simple is.