our cold smokers

[cowgirl]

Great smokers everyone!
Terry, I think you could smoke a whole cow in your's.....niiiice!

 

[bigarm's smokin]

It holds quite a bit alright. Trouble is, "I" get to buy the cow, process the cow, smoke the cow, THEN, everyone shows up and wants to take half of it home with them.

 

[goat]

Here is mine again: http://www.darylecoates.com/sausage.html Not too fancy but it works pretty good.

 

[cowgirl]

Niiiice goat!

That smokehouse gets the job done.
I like the fact that you do not use chicken lips, that's one of the main reasons everyone should make their own sausage and not buy it.

Terry, I know what you mean, I have to make venison jerky in secret...then hide the goods when I'm finished or it will vanish within the day.

 

[goat]

Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. I do not have a thermomenter in my smokehouse, but I would say not to get over 100* and I know that I keep mine a lot lower than that. I have a piece of 16" pipe in the bottom of mine with one of those metal oil pans in it. I place a few small pieces of oak in the pan and light the wood. I then place the pan in the pipe and just let the small fire burn or smolder. I smoke whatever I have, for as long as the instructions call for, but mostly 6 to 24 hrs. As you can see from this thread, there are numerous ways to build a cold smoker. I have a friend that used to use 4 pieces of scaffolding and threw a canvas tarp over it for a long time and that set up was passed down from his grandfather. Several tons of sausage were smoked in that very simple smokehouse.

 

[nogoer]

To add to Goat...

The point of cold smoking is to flavor the food without cooking it which would alter the texture of the raw meat. Doing this also helps preserve the meat by chemical reactions from the acids in the smoke reacting with the surface of the meat. To be true cold smoked ,temps must stay below 100F and the closer to ambient the better.

Generally cold smoking takes hours if not days which is why most cold smoked meat like sausage or bacon have nitrates(cure salt) added to combat bacteria. The exceptions are things like cheese which require the cold smoke method to prevent melting during flavoring and are usually smoked enough after an hour or so. Since cold smoking in modern times is essentially for flavor than the time taken can be adjusted to your personal tastes. The longer you smoke something the stronger the flavor. For example i smoked a tiny peice of bacon last week. It was under a pound so i cured it in honey and curing salt for 3 days then cold smoked it for 5-6 hours at 50F. that short time was all it took to get a strong hickory flavor through the whole bacon. Color is also a good indicator of smoke time because you want that nice smoked brown color and the bigger the meat the longer that takes.

To make a cold smoker all you need is a smoke generator and a meat box. The colder you can keep the smoke generator the less heat will make it to the meat box and the more consistent and reliable the setup will be. the farther away from the meat box the generator is the cooler the smoke will be when it gets to the meat box as well. There really is no wrong or right way to build a cold smoker and this thread has lots of great ideas for doing so. Keep in mind though that plastics and galvanized metal can be trouble and if your using wood or cardboard anywhere near the smoke generator you should use a chip cover with holes to help prevent flareups.

Following this post will be another post with my setup.

Edit::Actually forgot that i have a thread i posted yesterday about my setup, but i will add the photo agin for conveniance
http://smokingmeatforums.com/forums/...ad.php?t=10520

 

[goat]

Thanks for the assistance here nogoer. One can never think of everything.

 

[nogoer]

No problem Goat!

All this stuff is fresh in my head because its all i've been thinking about for the last few months. The curing, stuffing, smoking of bacons and sausgae is quickly becoming my most favorite thing to do. That doesn't make me wierd or anything does it?!?!

 

[goat]

Nogoer, Not on this forum. Anywhere else, well let's just not go there.