New to the forum here! So please excuse me if I posted this in the wrong place.
I have been making fresh, unsmoked sausage for more than 20 years, and I think I'd finally like to get a smoker. I MAY hot-smoke some, but my main goal is to poach and then cold-smoke. I have done a lot of business with The Sausage Maker among others who sell dedicated sausage smokers, and I have been eyeing up their smokers for years. The smaller units seem to rely on a pan of sawdust on a burner for generating smoke AND heat, but some of the larger ones have external smoke generators (a blower and a sawdust firebox in an enclosure). At least in the case of the smaller units, but for the sawdust pan burner and its controller the unit is essentially just an (expensive) insulated box. So right off the bat, after buying that expensive insulated box whose burner and heat controller I would rarely use I would need to add a cold-smoke generator. Granted, those tubes with the aquarium pumps (Smoke Daddy, Bellas, etc.) are not all that expensive, and I could even make my own, but are there no manufacturers who make a consumer-grade vertical smoker that is specifically geared toward cold smoking or at least being able to control smoke and heat independently? I believe there are vertical pellet smokers that offer the option of a pipe extension to cool the smoke before it enters the smoker, but a pellet setup like that seems like overkill if all I want to do is cold-smoke sausage. Do most people in my shoes just build a DIY smokehouse (using an old fridge or whatever box) and attach a cold-smoke generator?
If all of that is too long-winded, maybe I should just ask what do YOU use to cold-smoke sausage?
I have been making fresh, unsmoked sausage for more than 20 years, and I think I'd finally like to get a smoker. I MAY hot-smoke some, but my main goal is to poach and then cold-smoke. I have done a lot of business with The Sausage Maker among others who sell dedicated sausage smokers, and I have been eyeing up their smokers for years. The smaller units seem to rely on a pan of sawdust on a burner for generating smoke AND heat, but some of the larger ones have external smoke generators (a blower and a sawdust firebox in an enclosure). At least in the case of the smaller units, but for the sawdust pan burner and its controller the unit is essentially just an (expensive) insulated box. So right off the bat, after buying that expensive insulated box whose burner and heat controller I would rarely use I would need to add a cold-smoke generator. Granted, those tubes with the aquarium pumps (Smoke Daddy, Bellas, etc.) are not all that expensive, and I could even make my own, but are there no manufacturers who make a consumer-grade vertical smoker that is specifically geared toward cold smoking or at least being able to control smoke and heat independently? I believe there are vertical pellet smokers that offer the option of a pipe extension to cool the smoke before it enters the smoker, but a pellet setup like that seems like overkill if all I want to do is cold-smoke sausage. Do most people in my shoes just build a DIY smokehouse (using an old fridge or whatever box) and attach a cold-smoke generator?
If all of that is too long-winded, maybe I should just ask what do YOU use to cold-smoke sausage?