Smoker pointers

[Richierich]

The wood is used straight from the bag - it's certified for food use etc as they are major suppliers to the smoking industry.

Phil

Do these guys do dust, suitable for the yet to be delivered probbq one?

[wheels]

When I rang they said that they do dust - whether it's as fine as that supplied by Probbq I don't know. However, many of the smoker companies buy, rebag and resell their product so it may be.

You'd need to ring them and collect as delivery is very expensive - they're more used to sending out lorry loads!

Phil

[Kuma]

Some of Ashwood's dust is very fine, from my experience the imported product is finer than their own.
I'm sure that with the right material you don't need an elaborate set up for cold smoking just a channel filled with dust in a chamber with correct air flow does the job nicely - a long cool burn.

[saucisson]

I drive past them a week on Friday, I'll see if I can get in...

If I can shall I put you down for a £6 bag of Oak dust Rich?

Dave

[saucisson]

I assume you are about to prune your plum as opposed to chopping it down like I did mine.

You could kiln dry it in your domestic oven. Whether you would be better drying the branches and then chipping them or chipping then drying I'm not sure. It may depend how the oven chief feels about it (luckily that's me in our house ) Chippings will dry after an hour or so in a med hot oven, I assume a whole "joint" will take a lot longer.

Oak is fine for Camembert, so is plum. My wife's work recently did a lunch based on National Cheese week and I sent in a Camembert smoked with vine clippings wrapped in blanched vine leaves.

It went down rather well and I gather requests will be coming in for Christmas time. I'm not set up to sell so these will probably be a "Children in Need Special" all proceeds to charity.

I also sent in a very young "Oxford Blue" and apparently that was devoured too

[wheels]

How did you prep the vine clippings Dave?

[saucisson]

I pruned them last January and while harvesting this years still modest harvest of grapes tripped over the six foot lengths still lying where I dropped them alongside the vine

I used a pair of secauteurs and chopped them into <half inch pieces and popped them into my forced air cold smoker with a tiny piece of incense charcoal to get them going. I estimate about 750ml worth. They burnt hotter than anything I've ever put in it, there must have been a small fire in there But I got several hours of intense smoke which was, apparently, spot on.

I have enough left for some further attempts.

Dave

[wheels]

Thanks Dave

[Nutczak]

The smoke from Cedar would make almost any food inedible. I bet it tasted like turpentine, am I correct?

Avoid resinous evergreen trees and stick with fruiting hardwoods such as Oak, Maple, Hickory, Apple, Peach, Pecan, beech, alder, and such.

Another little trick for smoking cheeses, after you remove the cheese from the smoker, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, it will give a chance for the smoke to penetrate a little deeper, and to mellow out.

Take that cedar smoked cheese and bury it so no animals get sick from eating it.

[kevster]

The smoke from Cedar would make almost any food inedible. I bet it tasted like turpentine, am I correct?

Avoid resinous evergreen trees and stick with fruiting hardwoods such as Oak, Maple, Hickory, Apple, Peach, Pecan, beech, alder, and such.

Another little trick for smoking cheeses, after you remove the cheese from the smoker, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, it will give a chance for the smoke to penetrate a little deeper, and to mellow out.

Take that cedar smoked cheese and bury it so no animals get sick from eating it.

It was pretty rough. Initially I'd just intended to use the cedar to test out the burn rate and time....but then couldn't resist putting in a bit of cheese out of curiosity. Won't be doing that again.

I expect I'll be using oak (seems to be widely available), beech (place near here sells seasoned logs, which I'll make shavings from with a flat drill bit), apple (parents have loads of apple trees) and plum (as you say Dave, I will just be pruning a couple of branches to make sawdust and then probably oven dry this).

Kev

[mitchamus]

...smoke a camembert ...plan is to embed it in some homemade bread....

that sounds awesome!

I'm definitely adding that to my 'stuff to try' list

[kevster]

...smoke a camembert ...plan is to embed it in some homemade bread....

that sounds awesome!

I'm definitely adding that to my 'stuff to try' list

With a good ripe camembert it makes an awsome weekend lunch. Just cut it up like a cake and dip the warm bread wedges into the hot cheese oozing out from the middle. Great with some ham or a homemade pork pie (I like to top my pork pies with different chuttnies....my favourite being gooseberry, and the whole pork/chuttney/cheese thing is great).

With the cheesy bread, just place the camembert on top of the bread after you've beaten it down and let it rise around the cheese.

Kev

[Richierich]

I drive past them a week on Friday, I'll see if I can get in...

If I can shall I put you down for a £6 bag of Oak dust Rich?

Dave

I have got plenty of oak that I could "process", if they do Maple or Beech I might be interested.

[saucisson]

I'll ring them up and ask about maple and beech.

Dave

[Nutczak]

I am not aware of where you are located, but if shipping is not too difficult, I would be more than happy to send you hardwood sawdust to use for the actual cost of shipping.

I purchase 40 pound bags of the stuff for next to nothing, it is mixed hardwood chips about 3-4MM across. Similar to what you would see from a chainsaw.

here is the webpage of the product I get for sausage smoking in my small electric smoker, My bigger pits use 3' length split logs

http://www.frantzcompany.com/sawdust.htm

I hope you are able to get the cedar smell out of your smoker, it may still taint other foods from the resins on the inner walls.

I had a friend who thought we would season his pit with pine, we needed to sandblast the interior and use harsh chemicals to get that funky smell ot of it, and then reseason with oil and burn green hardwoods to re-caot the steel again.