Smoke house questions.

[bolognyhead]

Hello, this is my first post and I am new to this forum, so please bear with me. My smoke house is 95 inches long and about four feet wide with a pitched roof. The peak is about eleven feet. I am smoking in Wisconsin and the temperatures have been near zero and below at night. My stove is thirty inches from the building. I am able to maintain the temperature at around fifty, but I do have lots of condensation. Does anyone know how much smoke is too much smoke for COLD smoking? Any ideas regarding ventilation would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance.

 

[boykjo]

Welcome to SMF Bolognyhead and were glad to have you aboard.. Can you swing over to roll call and introduce yourself so we can give you a proper welcome.....

I moved your post from the sausage forum to the cold smoking info and practices forum. You'll get some help about cold smoking over there....

 

[mr t 59874]

 
 Does anyone know how much smoke is too much smoke for COLD smoking? Any ideas regarding ventilation would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance.

The color and density of the smoke depends on the product being smoked.  Maybe the following will help.  Understanding Smoke Management - updated 5/18/13     My Cold Smoking Options w/Q - View

Tom

 

[bolognyhead]

Thank you Tom, I really appreciate you responding. I will check out the link. One more thing, I have lots of condensation in my smoke house. If you have any ideas on how to lower the moisture level, that too would be appreciated.

 

[mr t 59874]

Warm air entering a cold smoker will cause moisture to form.  This can be eliminated in a couple different ways.  One way is to use an external box that contains you smoke generator and cool the smoke before it enters the smoker housing your product that you want smoked.  The closer the two temperatures are, the less condensation.   Another way may be to have good ventilation.  Perhaps a simple chimney with a damper installed would be enough to remove the moist air.

Hope this helps.

Tom

 

[daveomak]

Hello, this is my first post and I am new to this forum, so please bear with me. My smoke house is 95 inches long and about four feet wide with a pitched roof. The peak is about eleven feet. I am smoking in Wisconsin and the temperatures have been near zero and below at night. My stove is thirty inches from the building. I am able to maintain the temperature at around fifty, but I do have lots of condensation. Does anyone know how much smoke is too much smoke for COLD smoking? Any ideas regarding ventilation would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance.

BH, evening..... Smoke and temperature control can be achieved with adjustable air inlets and exhaust ports.. With an external stove used for smoke/heat generating, upper air inlet for moving heat/smoke above the fire.... and lower inlet for adjusting the air to the fire...... For the smokehouse, upper exhaust ports and lower air inlets for adjusting the temperature and removing moisture... I recommend the inlet and exhaust ports be on the side walls..... exhaust, especially on the side walls, as a roof vent has tendency to drip condensate back down on the food....
Hope all that makes sense.....

Dave

 

[bolognyhead]

Tom your links and advice are very helpful and informative. Thank you. I am starting to think that there may be hope for me after all. My smoke house if pretty big and I use an old wood stove to generate the smoke. The distance between the stove and the smoke house is only 30 inches, and I had all of the smoke going into the smoke house. So I believe I had too much smoke, not enough ventilation and smoke too hot and lots of condensation all bad,

I do have the problem of keeping the temperature above freezing in Wisconsin. I think I will try to run the chimney into the smoke house and have it exhaust through the roof. I will insert a "T" in this pipe with a damper. This way I can control the amount of smoke and still have heat in the smoke house. As I said the smoke house is 95 inches wide and about eleven feet from the floor to ceiling. So it does need some additional heat. I will add some gable vents as well for additional air movement.

Any advice you might have is greatly appreciated. Thanks again Tom.

 

[bolognyhead]

Hello Dave, thank you for your thoughts, I will add additional ventilation to the gable end of the smoke house. I can see where roof vents could cause condensation problems. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out.