Bradley Smoker

[saucisson]

Wow! Cold smoked duck, lightly pan fried, we nearly died it was so gorgeous.

And that piece of cheddar smells simply awesome

don't know about the garlic yet

[saucisson]

Sorry Gill, the fine tuning is what makes it work at all; and I have spent most of the day getting the prototype this far. It was far more complex than I anticipated, and I'm not there yet. It will be mindboggling easy to recreate if it works.

Dave

[tristar]

Hi Dave,

If your system works at only two degrees above ambient temperature it may work for me living in the tropics, I have been looking for a system which introduces as little heat into the smoking environment as possible. I would be very interested in your process, if you are willing to share it of course.

[saucisson]

I may be re-inventing the wheel so please humour me if this has been done before.
OK here it is... the big secret, a 400g baked bean can Basically it's a micro incinerator that converts wood chips to charcoal and then smoulders the charcoal. Getting the air flow right was the tricky bit! Take the top off and enjoy the contents. In the base drill twelve 8mm holes, I did 3 in the midddle and a ring of 9 around the outside. On the sides just above the base drill eight 8mm holes. 2cm higher drill eight more 8ml holes, staggered to the first set. 2cm higher drill ten 6mm holes. 2cm higher drill twelve 4mm holes and finally 2cm higher drill fifteen 3 mm holes. fill loosely with wood chips and ignite with a cooks blow torch. There is an initial burn that converts all the chips to charcoal and would be more suited to hotsmoking than cold. Once all the chips turn to charcoal the flames go out and it starts smouldering, once it has burnt down to an inch or so just top up with wood chips again, these will convert to charcoal without flames so it is now self sustaining, just keep topping it up. Ash and the occasional bit of hot charcoal falls out of the bottom so you need to stand it on a rack, it worked fine in a kettle bbq when I tried it last night, but the bigger the box and the better the air flow the less danger of heat build up.

Good luck, I'm sure it can be improved on but I thought I'd share the Mk 1 with you

Dave

[Wohoki]

I guess you could just start it off with some charcoal, and then top it up with woodchips when the coals were burned off a bit.

Nice bit of minimalist design, saucisson.

[Gill]

Woohoo! Baked beans for tea tonight !

Many thanks for sharing the secret, Dave. The materials are so cheap that you could make two or three and as the smoke from one is exhausted, you could just replace it with another which you've already primed. Incidentally, how long were you able to produce smoke this way?

Gill

[saucisson]

Long enough for me to forget when it started smoking it just kept on going as I put more chips on top and the Ash fell out of the bottom. I hoping it's not too specific as to the wood chips it will use, mine were quite fine grade: "Plum Products Barbecue wood chips" I'd like to try it on sawdust or other chippings as well.

You could have extra one's lined up but I found that once it's had its second dose of chips the burn is from the base so you can just keep sprinkling chips on the top as required.

Dave

[vinner]

This works for me:

Get a metal pie pan, and fill it with a 3 or 4 cm layer of wood dust (apple, cherry or any wood dust.

Ignite 2 or 3 charcaol pieces in a bucket. When they are covered with gray ash, put them on the wood dust, and into whatever vessel you are using to smoke, as far away from the product as possble. By adding ash covered charcoal briquets every 2 hours or so, and replenishing the wood dust as needed, you can get as many hours as you need. I only have to add more dust every 3 or 4 hours. Works for my links, bacon and salamis.

[Oddley]

Dave, A very inventive idea, if I ever get near a smoker I'll try it. What we need is a name to refer to it in future discussions.

How about:

Dave insert second name here 's baked bean tin smoker.

[saucisson]

Dave, A very inventive idea, if I ever get near a smoker I'll try it. What we need is a name to refer to it in future discussions.

How about:

Dave insert second name here 's baked bean tin smoker.

That would be "David Richard's necessity is the mother of invention baked bean can smoker" then.

My surname I keep to myself

The new improved slower burning Mark II is on the way (I hope) and may be even simpler.

[Oddley]

OK so David Richard's baked bean can smoker it is then.

When it is famous throughout the smoker community you might be sorry you didn't name it with your real surname name though.

[saucisson]

Dr Dave's Smoker works for me

It was bizarre, the wood chips burnt very slowly, with a blue/red flame. Then the flame went out and smoke started to pour out, I thought it had gone out and would stop as on previous goes, but it just kept going.

[tristar]

Hi Dr Dave,

I can see that I will be spending some time in my workshop when I get home! Just some clarification for me, are you lighting the "Dr Dave's Smoker from the top or from the bottom? I have assumed from the earlier posts that it is from the bottom so that the heat from the combustion can convert the chips above to charcoal but I would like to know for sure before I give it a try!

Best Regards,
Richard

[saucisson]

Hi Richard,
You light it from the top, it takes a few seconds with a Cooks blow torch to get the fire going and I didn't fancy trying that from underneath while holding it. Standing the can on some hot coals until it gets going from underneath may work as well. I suspect it might be better as that's how it burns when it's self sustaining, so you might get to the cold smoking stage sooner, but I haven't had a chance to try it that way yet. It's still in beta testing but has been pre-released due to consumer demand

Dave

[tristar]

Hi Dave,

I would imagine that by the time I get home in about 5 weeks, the beta testing should all be complete! I cannot imagine the state of my fingers or the cost in drill bits after trying to drill all those holes in a baked bean can, so I might just have to try punching them with a diamond point cold chisel, should be easy to adjust the size of the holes that way to. Please keep us up to date if you do any more refining of the design, a very interesting project indeed.

Regards,
Richard