Trying to add cold smoke to my salmon smoker, worried about tar

[wrybread]

Aha, the A-maze-N maze pellet smoker is available on ebay, ordered:

A-MAZE-N AMNPS 5 in x 9 in Maze Pellet Smoker Box for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for A-MAZE-N AMNPS 5 in x 9 in Maze Pellet Smoker Box at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Sold out everywhere else I could find it. Hopefully it's the real thing.

And if I'm smoking around 130 to 140 degrees, is there any reason to still use the mailbox mod (or similar) once I get that pellet tray? Couldn't I just put the tray inside the smoker, maybe with tallbm 's clever mod to get some air moving?

And using this with the mailbox mod, do your pellets ever flame up after you blow them out?

And on a sidenote I ordered this temperature controller to control my heating element and sound an alarm if my smoker gets too hot, which happens when the wood flames up. That alarm could either be soiunded by a radio plugged into the "cooling" outlet, or I think it even has a built-in alarm for high temperature. This simplifies my old method of using two of these, one set to heat the smoker by powering the heating element (since the stock innards of my Masterbuilt died during one of my mods), and one set to sound an alarm if the temp goes above 150.

Inkbird also has a unit with two relays which probably would have worked too, but I like the built-in power outlets on the Pymeter. I also like the way the Pymeter has two temperature probes, handy to be able to see the temperature at different levels of the smoker.

 

[tallbm]

Aha, the A-maze-N maze pellet smoker is available on ebay, ordered:

A-MAZE-N AMNPS 5 in x 9 in Maze Pellet Smoker Box for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for A-MAZE-N AMNPS 5 in x 9 in Maze Pellet Smoker Box at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Sold out everywhere else I could find it. Hopefully it's the real thing.

And if I'm smoking around 130 to 140 degrees, is there any reason to still use the mailbox mod (or similar) once I get that pellet tray? Couldn't I just put the tray inside the smoker, maybe with tallbm 's clever mod to get some air moving?

And using this with the mailbox mod, do your pellets ever flame up after you blow them out?

And on a sidenote I ordered this temperature controller to control my heating element and sound an alarm if my smoker gets too hot, which happens when the wood flames up. That alarm could either be soiunded by a radio plugged into the "cooling" outlet, or I think it even has a built-in alarm for high temperature. This simplifies my old method of using two of these, one set to heat the smoker by powering the heating element (since the stock innards of my Masterbuilt died during one of my mods), and one set to sound an alarm if the temp goes above 150.

Inkbird also has a unit with two relays which probably would have worked too, but I like the built-in power outlets on the Pymeter. I also like the way the Pymeter has two temperature probes, handy to be able to see the temperature at different levels of the smoker.

As long as your AMNPS gets enough oxygen inside your smoker you should be fine. Many with the MES30 cannot run it inside the smoker, I've helped a number of them because of this and the mailbox mod fixed it right up. So the mailbox mod is the sure fire approach.

If you are running 130/140 then the heat should create draft as it is hotter inside your smoker than outside so no need for an air assist mod, the draft does the trick.
See I had to build my air assist mod because the air inside the smoker is not really hotter than outside the smoker when I cold smoke or it isn't hot enough to cause a draft on it's own since the heating element is not running. The smoke would not want to exit and become stale and nasty. So I built the contraption and solved the problem :)

The pellets can flare up in the mailbox mod but they also do so inside the MES as well. You just have to make sure you don't get a bunch of gusting wind entering your mailbox mod so drill enough holes accordingly to handle the situation or make sure it doesn't get a bunch of direct wind.
My flare ups usually happen if I open the door really fast and check on something and that extra suction stokes the pellets and 5 minutes later I have a flare up. Flare ups are easily handled with a mailbox mod though u just blow em out unless its a raging flare up then it just does what it does haha.

Make sure the 1st controller you linked can go over 210F degrees and you would at least want the 16A one as the MES40 element is 1200Watts. I couldn't easily tell and in one of the reviews the guy states 210F max temp which would not be so great for smoking meat but would be fine if you wanted to do cold and warm smokes or just do sausage, jerky, and bacon lol.

The 2nd controller is only 10A so your MES would likely burn it up with the 1200Watt element, you generally want something a bit beefier and want to avoid being right at the limit of what the MES can pull for current.

You are on your way though. Things are getting interesting :D

 

[cmayna]

wrybread,
Sorry for my late reply. Yesterday, the wife and I were was out past the Farallon Islands with a bunch of fishing buddies, gathering limits of rock and Ling cod. I'm exhausted.......

One of the reasons I use the mailbox is to allow me to check the pellets and more importantly change from Alder to Apple midway thru the smoke, without opening the smoker. Those AmazeN trays works perfect with a mailbox. I think once you practice using one, you will see a reduction of smoke which is a good thing for those who are generating too much smoke.

Oh and to reply to a couple of your previous questions, for Salmon, I use a 5/1 ratio of dk brn sugar over non iodized salt. Smoking time varies depends on the typical size of the pieces I'm smoking, but an average guess is 5 hours starting at 125 and ending at 145 degrees.

I use an Auber WS-1510 ELPM controller.

There are so many tricks of the trade and it's fun learning them, unless you're too busy out on the water chasin' them big ones

 

[wrybread]

wrybread,
Sorry for my late reply. Yesterday, the wife and I were was out past the Farallon Islands with a bunch of fishing buddies, gathering limits of rock and Ling cod. I'm exhausted.......

Awesome! What a beautiful spot that is.

One of the reasons I use the mailbox is to allow me to check the pellets and more importantly change from Alder to Apple midway thru the smoke, without opening the smoker. Those AmazeN trays works perfect with a mailbox. I think once you practice using one, you will see a reduction of smoke which is a good thing for those who are generating too much smoke.

Interesting, I should try mixing in some alder. Any comments on how that affects it?

So far I'm finding that opening the BBQ doesn't have much effect on the amount of smoke in the smoker, so I don't mind the system. If I find a non galvanized mailbox though or some other container I might try it, since it is a bit of a hassle dealing wth the hose connection at the top of the mailbox. It gets fatigued with all the motion and I've had to re-attach it a couple of times.

Oh and to reply to a couple of your previous questions, for Salmon, I use a 5/1 ratio of dk brn sugar over non iodized salt. Smoking time varies depends on the typical size of the pieces I'm smoking, but an average guess is 5 hours starting at 125 and ending at 145 degrees.

Pretty much the same method I'm using. I'm thinking about making my brine a bit less salty since I'm eating so much smoked salmon now, ha. I'm worried about all the sodium. The salmon are back with a vengeance, and in the last two days I've caught almost 100 pounds of salmon! Yesterday was a quick limit with a 25 and ~10, and today was a 28 and a 25 before 9am. Unbelievable fishing.

Yesterday:

Today:

I'm smoking some of the "dumpster cuts" now (the carcass after the filets have been removed), I'm going to make a separate post about that since it works so well and is basically limitless smoked salmon.

I use an Auber WS-1510 ELPM controller.

Looks nice. Pricey but not to use stuff that isn't Chinese junk. I'm using that Pymeter, so far so good, but it can only handle 1200 watts. That's fine for my setup which uses a Big Chief heating element, which I think is about 400 watts. One nice thing about the unit is it has a built in high temperature alarm, so if it jumps up to 150 (which could only happen if the pellets flame up) it sounds an audible alarm.

There are so many tricks of the trade and it's fun learning them, unless you're too busy out on the water chasin' them big ones

Amen!

Incidentally I'm smoking right now with that pallet tube, since the maze hasn't arrived yet. I followed your instructions, filled it halfway and then turned it on it's side and lit it. What a joy to use that is compared to my old method. It's been on total auto pilot for hours now. With my old method I had to watch it like a hawk, now I don't even need to be near the thing.

And on a sidenote I just processed the row from the two hens. A couple of pics.

Start with these, which most fisherpeople throw away anyway:

Rub it on something to remove the eggs from the skeins. I use the same silverwware holder that I used to use in my smoker. Rub the eggs on that and the friction separates them. Can also use a tennis raquet, but those are harder to clean.

Then I strain it in a collander or finer if the eggs are small. I rinse it too, try to remove all the non egg stuff.

Then my brine is:

1.5 cups dashi (I subbed 1 teasepoon hondashi and half to ¾ cup water)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sake (or mirin)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon salt

I get the dashi or hondashi at an asian market.

Then you get this. The one on the left is the smaller eggs from the smaller salmon, and on the right is the larger eggs.

They're so much better than anything I've gotten at a sushi restaurant. I love it over rice on its own:

Or as part of sushi: