Modifying the Little Chief

[madsmoker]

Hi everyone!
New to the board.

I'm in Minnesota & it's easy to use the Little Chief as a cold smoker here without modifications in Winter. Especially this one since it's so thin.

When summer rolls around some days the ambient air temp exceeds 90 degrees in the shade. Wondering if anyone has any ideas for modifying it into a cold smoker to keep making cheese in the summer-time.

The Little Chief comes with cold smoker mod suggestions for the top loader, but I got the front-loader.

Any advice?

Cool board by the way.

Darin

 

[cajunsmoker]

If he doesn't respond to your post, try a PM to Smoked. He built some type of cold smoker using a Big Chief or Little Chief or some type of "Injun" smoker. He piped in smoke out of another smoker through some type of flap? I'm not that familiar with those smokers but I remember him talking about it.

And welcome to the SMF by the way. Glad to have you aboard.

 

[madsmoker]

Thanks for the reply. Yea, cheese is the reason I wanted to make a better cold smoker, but after familiarizing myself with the board a little more I see there were probably a million better threads where I could have posted this question.

 

[cajunsmoker]

That's OK, your first post should have been in Roll Call anyway. So now go hit those other threads.

 

[deejaydebi]

Welcome Madsmoker
Don't know the smoker but I do know a good bit about cheese ...

Canjun -

Maybe another cheese maker? Did someone say cheese?

 

[cheech]

If you still have the box that it came in you can take the racking out of the unit place it on top of the smoker and then place the box over the top.

In fact I believe that the instructions show how to do this. I no longer have my instructions but may be someone else here still has theirs

 

[smoked]

yea I modified my big chief to be a dedicated cold smoker box, it's modified to take the smoke generated from my masterbuilt unit...... mine is a front loader as well. Now if you still have the box that the unit came in you can use that sitting on top of the smoker as a cold box, I used to do that with mine from time to time......it's a bit of a pain in the butt but it does work. I just got tired of the non-insulated design that I finally got out of the dark ages and jumped on a new insulated unit that makes life much easier!!!!!!

 

[madsmoker]

Yea the Little Chief comes with the generic directions to turn the top loading LC into a cold smoker with the box it came in. I haven't tried it, but there are a couple of issues. The front loader doesn't have a solid racking system you pull out. It uses individual racks that slide out of fixed holders. I'm sure I could do a bit of McGuyvering, but also it seems like tons of smoke poors out the front by the door & not the tiny slits at the top which is all there is to vent out the top.

 

[smoked]

well you can do the "bricks and sticks" type method, that is basically what I did by using some bricks to put the racks on and keep building up that way......

 

[gp george]

I use a cardboard box with approximately the same width and depth dimensions as smoker. The box the smoker came in works well. The bottom of the box should be open and the flaps left on the top.

Insert two lengths of stiff wire, welding rods work well, near the bottom of the box to allow it to set on the smoker and allow the smoke to rise into it.

Inset two more rods at the height above the smoker you would like to have the wire rack.

Lay one of the racks from the smoker on the top rack with the cheese or salmon and close the top flaps.

The smoke escapes in the box with almost no heat.  Works well.