Wood meal/wood dust!

[mysos]

Hi everybody, 

My first post here, almost total newbie, but with a lot of research behind me  by now! My husband has been the smoker in our household until now, and he has never done cold smoking. I've convinced him that we try cold smoking. My problem is that it's pretty difficult to find wood meal/wood dust fine enough. I have found some but it's way too course for cold smoking. 

SO my question is: Where do you buy your wood meal/wood dust/wood dust at reasonable prices? Does anybody use pellets for cold smoking? I have read that the A-Maze-N product are the best, but they are crazy expensive I think - but maybe that's the norm. Any advice is highly appreciated. 

Thanks 

 

[crankybuzzard]

Hi everybody, 

My first post here, almost total newbie, but with a lot of research behind me  by now! My husband has been the smoker in our household until now, and he has never done cold smoking. I've convinced him that we try cold smoking. My problem is that it's pretty difficult to find wood meal/wood dust fine enough. I have found some but it's way too course for cold smoking. 

SO my question is: Where do you buy your wood meal/wood dust/wood dust at reasonable prices? Does anybody use pellets for cold smoking? I have read that the A-Maze-N product are the best, but they are crazy expensive I think - but maybe that's the norm. Any advice is highly appreciated. 

Thanks 

Welcome to SMF.

Cheap dust and pellets are usually not 100% of the wood they are advertised as. Most will be oak or alder with the advertised wood added in.

AMAZEN dust and pellets are 100% what they say they are and they make a really good product as well. Many of us here use their products and really like what we get.

However, if you want a fine dust, you can put pellets or coarse dust into a blender and grind them down a bit. Don't do more than about 1/2 cup at a time and remember that friction can cause heat, so pulse and check.

 

[phatbac]

 
Hi everybody, 

My first post here, almost total newbie, but with a lot of research behind me  by now! My husband has been the smoker in our household until now, and he has never done cold smoking. I've convinced him that we try cold smoking. My problem is that it's pretty difficult to find wood meal/wood dust fine enough. I have found some but it's way too course for cold smoking. 

SO my question is: Where do you buy your wood meal/wood dust/wood dust at reasonable prices? Does anybody use pellets for cold smoking? I have read that the A-Maze-N product are the best, but they are crazy expensive I think - but maybe that's the norm. Any advice is highly appreciated. 

Thanks 

Hello and welcome to SMF!

 I have done cold smoking only a couple times but i used pellets when i did. I used them in an amazen tray. the pellets produce smoke without a ton of heat. I did mine in a WSM with some charcoal in the bottom for a litle heat but never got it over 150 degrees. its easier with an electric MES or something similar but i dont have one of those so i used what i have.

As far as cheap pellets i found a 20# bag of hickory pellets at Walmart for $9 and change.

shop around you can find some pellets cheap.

this how i did it with WSM..i lit about 4 or 5 briquettes (kingsford blue bag)

and put in the ring and did the "snake" method and i put one lit briquette in the end of the tray and had over 8 hours of smoke

IMG_20170121_102608.jpg

• phatbac
• Jan 30, 2017

this is the gentle smoke from the a-maze-n tray. i smoked 20# (precooked) of jerky

IMG_20170121_114622.jpg

• phatbac
• Jan 30, 2017

Hope this Helps:

phatbac (Aaron)

 

[mysos]

Good idea CrankyBuzzard with the blender, had heard about it before, just wasn't sure it would work. In the meantime I had somebody tell me that he actually has used the A-Maze-N pellets for cold smoking, so I might just give that a try.

 

[mysos]

Looks good phatbac, my problem is that I want to coldsmoke, temperature at a max of 80F, so no briquettes or chips LOL But it looks like a good setup, my husband has added smoke to our Weber Genesis several times by using chips, that worked out great as well. We do have a smoker, so we'll simply be using that without turning on the heat, just use a tray like yours or maybe just spread the wood meal (if I ever find it LOL) in a U-shape, which is what I've seen others do. If this totally fails we'll just go back to regular smoking, as low as possible. But I just want to give it a try, I miss some of my Danish cold cuts!

 

[phatbac]

 
Looks good phatbac, my problem is that I want to coldsmoke, temperature at a max of 80F, so no briquettes or chips LOL But it looks like a good setup, my husband has added smoke to our Weber Genesis several times by using chips, that worked out great as well. We do have a smoker, so we'll simply be using that without turning on the heat, just use a tray like yours or maybe just spread the wood meal (if I ever find it LOL) in a U-shape, which is what I've seen others do. If this totally fails we'll just go back to regular smoking, as low as possible. But I just want to give it a try, I miss some of my Danish cold cuts!

what are you trying to cold smoke at 80 degrees? cheese? also what kind of smoker do you plan on using? where i live i could just light the tray (those are pellets in the pic) and smoke at 80 because that's the air temp.  

as a side note those pellets work pretty good in my Weber kettle if i want some smokeyness to burgers or steaks or pork chops. I drop them into the charcoal baskets in my kettle and they put a lighter flavor than a chunk and not so much flare up.

Happy Smoking,

phatbac (Aaron)

 

[mysos]

 
what are you trying to cold smoke at 80 degrees? cheese? also what kind of smoker do you plan on using? where i live i could just light the tray (those are pellets in the pic) and smoke at 80 because that's the air temp.  

as a side note those pellets work pretty good in my Weber kettle if i want some smokeyness to burgers or steaks or pork chops. I drop them into the charcoal baskets in my kettle and they put a lighter flavor than a chunk and not so much flare up.

Happy Smoking,

phatbac (Aaron)

Aaron, I'll be smoking bacon and pork loin. It's in a dry brine right now, from tonight I'll be drying it in the fridge for 3-4 days and then 3 x 10 hour smoking at the lowest possible temperature. REally looking forward to it. OK, had never thought about using pellets for adding smokeyness to meat, will let my husband know. I'll leave the bbq'ing to him - for now LOL We only have an old Weber Genesis Silver gas bbq, and a couple of smokers. Oh yeah, one tiny briquette bbq as well, think we've used it twice. I really do like bbq'ing with briquettes, that's what I used to do back in Denmark. A bit more of an effort, but the food tastes wonderful.

 

[crankybuzzard]

Aaron, I'll be smoking bacon and pork loin. It's in a dry brine right now, from tonight I'll be drying it in the fridge for 3-4 days and then 3 x 10 hour smoking at the lowest possible temperature. REally looking forward to it. OK, had never thought about using pellets for adding smokeyness to meat, will let my husband know. I'll leave the bbq'ing to him - for now LOL We only have an old Weber Genesis Silver gas bbq, and a couple of smokers. Oh yeah, one tiny briquette bbq as well, think we've used it twice. I really do like bbq'ing with briquettes, that's what I used to do back in Denmark. A bit more of an effort, but the food tastes wonderful.

I've used an AMAZEN tray in a cardboard box to cold smoke in before, so the grill, smoker, etc you have will work great with either the pellets or dust.

Sounds like you'll fit in nicely here! When you get a chance, check out the curing and cold smoking sections.

 

[mysos]

I've used an AMAZEN tray in a cardboard box to cold smoke in before, so the grill, smoker, etc you have will work great with either the pellets or dust.

Sounds like you'll fit in nicely here! When you get a chance, check out the curing and cold smoking sections.

Thanks, I found out only a few weeks ago how cold smoking actually works LOL Can't believe I'd been so ignorant about it until now! Oh well, now I know how easy it actually is to cold smoke, I mean how little equipment you need. Just observing the outside temperature, which is a must!. I¨ve already been buzzing around in several forums,  but not the curing section! Will go there as well, thanks for pointing that out to me. I've been getting great advice as well in a Danish forum to find the best way to smoke our "national" dishes, like the pork loin. Just took the meat out of its brine today, it's looking great. Can't wait to smoke it. Better go find some of that dust, I suppose the A-Maze-N brand dust is good for cold smoking as well, otherwise I'll try the pellets first.