Smoking good time in NM

[brew n smoke]

Hello Smoking Meat Forum Crew!  I am a new member located in Santa Fe, NM.  I am a meat cutter by trade and am beginning to branch out my skill set.  I want to learn about smoking and curing meat.  I currently am an avid homebrewer.  I built my own three tiered digitally controlled brew system.  I also retrofitted a fridge for a meat dry-curing chamber with temp and humidity control but have only used it a few times.  I want to add a smoker to my system to hot smoke tasty items as well as cold smoke dry-cured sausages.  I am trying to decide what direction to go with the smoker and I am looking for some sage advice. 

I currently have a simple 3 ft x 3 st x 4 ft pine box that i built for smoking.  I can retrofit that with a remote firebox and chimney pipe for a more traditional approach.  However I tend to lean toward the digital and tight controlling of temperature so it's only a matter of time before I would want more temp and humidity control.  At some point I may move in to professional meat processing so the experience with digital control and smoke programs may come in handy.

Do folks think a hobby digitally controlled electric smoker is worth the investment?  I would want one around $600.  What make do you recommend?

My other option would be to build my own electric system with a PID and smoke generator.  Any suggestions here. 

Lastly, how important is humidity control?  Does anyone use steam generators / humidifiers with humidity controls?

Thanks for you time I look forward to continuing the conversation. 

Brew n Smoke

 

[scarbelly]

Hello and 

to SMF - glad you joined in the fun 

Please do us a favor and update your profile with your location 

There are lots of great posts on Electric smokers here

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/f/110/electric-smokers

This thread will give you some great info on smoke generators

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/f/3140/amnps-tester-forum

 

[smokinhusker]

Hello and welcome to SMF!

 

[s2k9k]

to SMF!!! We're happy you found us! You've come to the right place, we have over 40,000 members and over 800,000 posts so you should be able to find almost anything you want to know. Remember the search bar at the top can be your best friend for finding answers fast!

You might want to check out Jeff's Free 5 day E-course it will teach you all the basics and a whole lot more!

 

[jrod62]

:welcome1: