So who wants to smoke? | Food Production and Preservation

So who wants to smoke?

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Hessian

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6 Aug ’14 - 10:49 pm

A few of you on here know my wife has a butcher shop. I am taking over the smoking aspect of things this week.

I built a smoker last week see picture below. Tomorrow I will be building a UDS or Ugly Drum Smoker, mostly for Hams.

So follow along and build your own and we can compare notes.

In a normal week we send through the smoker brisket, roast beef, lamb, ham, bacon, beef sticks, some private order jerky and other stuff. Roughly 300 kilos a week of smoking we will be doing in another month. Right now we do around 100 - 200 kilo a week.

We use coffee wood due to the easy access of the material here.

In the next few weeks if anyone is interested I will walk through Capicola, Pancetta, Lomo and a few others that are cured like Prosciutto.

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6 Aug ’14 - 10:53 pm

In!

Greenup

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7 Aug ’14 - 3:20 am

Count me in as well.

simthefarmer

Rancher

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7 Aug ’14 - 7:45 am

INTERDASTING!

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7 Aug ’14 - 8:32 am

so what do I need to go get to get this thing rolling?

Hessian

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7 Aug ’14 - 12:30 pm

All we need to get started is a metal drum (55 gallon), a grinder or cutter if you have it. A afternoon to burn off the barrel before we get cutting.

The one pictured above is being finish assembled today, basically picking up my food grade stainless racks and a chimney for it.

This gentlemen seems to have a good grasp of how it is done.

Hessian

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7 Aug ’14 - 12:41 pm

My build will be different then his in that we will be building a unit that can do hook and rack systems, plus a wee bit of changes for air flow.

Both systems will be running with a small electric burner, timer and remote thermostat. Since one of the main rules of smoking is not to peek during operation.

Systems will also be able to switch over to a gas propane burner in case the power goes out.

Hessian

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7 Aug ’14 - 5:52 pm

This is my barrel it was bought to be my rocket stove with a old metal beer keg but it is needed elsewhere. It is food grade and was coated with chocolate when I got it. The barrel has a rubber seal on the lid so I removed that before starting a fire in the barrel to burn off the exterior paint or anything else which might taint the meat or make cleaning harder. When smoking the hope is to stay around 250 unless low temp smoking fish, cheese or poultry kind of stuff. So I might try the seal out again once finished.

The straw in the background I have been using for growing mushrooms with coffee grinds added, another thread. The work table was originally a dog tread mill, but turned into a roller table for wood and metal stock.