www.sausagemaking.org

I found this info on adapting a hot smoker for cold smoking...http://www.smokeysplace.co.uk/cold%20smoking%20food.htm


Does this method seem plausible?

interesting, I feel another experiment coming on...

Dr Dave

Looks like a good place to start experimenting.

Get a good thermometer to monitor what's going on inside the "smoke chamber".

Yes, it would work. Having your sawdust *slightly* damp helps cool things down, too. I cold smoke in my Weber kettle using at technique I learned from Bruce Aidells. I have a tiny cast iron skillet and put 5 brickettes of charcoal in it, or an equivalent amount of lump charcoal. Once the charcoal is lit, I mound damp sawdust on the coals. Aidells outlines this technique in his Meat book, in his recipe for curing bacon at home. It works very well, providing plenty of smoke without getting too hot.

Its not such a good idea to use water evaporation **in** the smoke to cool it - this raises the humidity (potentially with later further cooling to condensation point). Cold smoking needs to be a slightly drying experience. It can be somewhat more drying for bacon/ham/fish than you'd want for cheese - but it doesn't want to be wet. Remember why you want a pellicle.
Wrapping the outside of a metal flex duct in wet cloths will cool it without adding extra dampness to the smoke.

Damp sawdust seems to produce more tarry muck (which doesn't seem too good an idea) quite apart from the humidity increase - I'd like to learn more about the considerations there.

dougal wrote:Its not such a good idea to use water evaporation **in** the smoke to cool it - this raises the humidity (potentially with later further cooling to condensation point). Cold smoking needs to be a slightly drying experience. It can be somewhat more drying for bacon/ham/fish than you'd want for cheese - but it doesn't want to be wet. Remember why you want a pellicle.
Wrapping the outside of a metal flex duct in wet cloths will cool it without adding extra dampness to the smoke.

Damp sawdust seems to produce more tarry muck (which doesn't seem too good an idea) quite apart from the humidity increase - I'd like to learn more about the considerations there.

Your comments make sense. Mine, unfortunately, were imprecise. Making the sawdust slightly damp for cold smoking is a common technique (as taught in the US, at least), to slow the burning of the sawdust and increase the smoke produced. It may increase tarry byproducts in the smoke; but, I don't know. I did not mean to suggest dampening the sawdust as a method to cool the smoke. Sorry.

vagreys wrote:... Making the sawdust slightly damp for cold smoking is a common technique (as taught in the US, at least), to slow the burning of the sawdust and increase the smoke produced. It may increase tarry byproducts in the smoke; but, I don't know. I did not mean to suggest dampening the sawdust as a method to cool the smoke. Sorry.

Tom, its a technique I've seen referred to and, for the same reasons as the use of 'green' wood can be questioned, I'm unconvinced that its the best idea.
Its something, as I said, that I want to know more about (which also means I don't know anywhere near enough to justify being dogmatic! )

Damp sawdust will definitely burn more slowly than dry. No question.
One big reason for this is that some of the heat of the 'fire' has to be used (latent heat of evaporation, etc) to dry the next bit of fuel, before it can be heated enough to burn.
That drying of the sawdust releases extra moisture into the smoke, and so into the smokehouse...

However it was particularly the Smokeysplace advice (linked from the first post) to use cold water or ice cubes *in* the smoke that I thought to be not the best of ideas.
Coolbox freezer gel packs, quite possibly. They will knock out some condensation, which you could usefully remove from time to time. But ice or water... well, its far from ideal.

What you really *really* don't want is condensation on the food being smoked.
Hence, it would seem sensible to have the food at ambient (not fridge) temperature before applying smoke. But I don't remember reading that set out anywhere... It ought not to be the coldest thing in the smokehouse!

dougal wrote:...However it was particularly the Smokeysplace advice (linked from the first post) to use cold water or ice cubes *in* the smoke that I thought to be not the best of ideas.
Coolbox freezer gel packs, quite possibly. They will knock out some condensation, which you could usefully remove from time to time. But ice or water... well, its far from ideal.

What you really *really* don't want is condensation on the food being smoked.
Hence, it would seem sensible to have the food at ambient (not fridge) temperature before applying smoke. But I don't remember reading that set out anywhere... It ought not to be the coldest thing in the smokehouse!

Ah. I wouldn't have thought that, in cold smoking, the temperature around the food would be high enough for there to be much release of moisture from the water bowl. I was thinking of it as a heat sink, but not enough heat to drive significant evaporation. Now, I'm going to have to experiment...

I certainly agree about the food being at ambient temperature before smoking (hot or cold). That said, I've never had a problem with condensate on my cold-smoked fish or bacon (that I know of).

Dougal, your observations fit in very well with what I've seen in my very limited experience to date. My first experiment with the soldering iron I used shavings from a plum tree log that I thought was well seasoned, but were still quite damp. A lot of condensation formed inside the can and it took a long time to smoke properly because, in line with what you said, the iron had to dry the shavings before they would smoke. Baking the shavings in the oven to dryness before smoking improved everything enormously. After all, the act of combustion produces CO2 and water so minimising the amount at the start seems a sensible precaution. I agree that if you generate enough heat to need a heat sink then evapouration may become an issue. This could be a sliding scale type of thing with a "safe zone" in the middle progressing to full on water smoking at the top. Myself, I'll try and avoid the need for heat sinks at all.

Dave