TheBigGuy
Well-Known Member
Don't go trying to patent this thing from under me now. I have not seen anything like this posted on the Internet, so this seems to be an original idea I stumbled upon (unlike like my knot I thought was original). Believe it or not, you can make a perfect cold smoker for a whole $2. This one I came up with myself after seeing commercially available cold smoke tubes on other US smoking forums. The ama-z-n pellet smoker tube is made out of a stainless corrugated sheet and is designed to burn smoker pellets for up to 8 hours depending on the length. It retails for around $40 in the states, but is on Amazon for $120 in Canada.
Guess what? I built a home made cold smoker of my own design from a $2 value village Angel food cake tray. I used the same principles from the commercial cold smoking pellet burners by drilling out many ventilation holes instead of using stainless mesh or corrugated stainless tubes.
I tested my home made smoker yesterday for the first time, cold smoking cheddar cheese in my big chief clone aluminum smoker. Cheese is notoriously hard to smoke because a very low temp must be maintained. Normally an aluminum smoker with an electric heater burning chips could never accomplish this feat.
I will outline how I accomplished this via pictures. First the $2 Angel food cake tray.
Next I drilled many small holes in the bottom of the AFC tray. Then I drilled out the sides and middle of the tray with larger holes.
I purchased a 20lb bag of Louisiana Grills New England Apple pellets from CDN Tire for $19.99 and I was off to the races for my first try at cheese smoking.
I first microwaved the smoker pellets 3 times at 111 seconds to remove any excess moisture to ensure it stayed lit. Then I filled the AFC Cold Smoker I'd made aprox half full with pellets. I lit one end of the pellets with a small propane torch for a few minutes and let it burn for 5 minutes more, to ensure it was burning well. Once the pellets have been burning solidly for 5 or more minutes, blow the flames out.
I bent the tabs down a bit on the part where the chip pan usually sits in my aluminum smoker, and my AFC cold smoker fit on top perfectly. That's it, no electricity required to keep it burning.
From the picture it might not appear to be generating a lot of smoke, but take my word for it, it is making as much smoke as a pan of chips would burning normally on the electric element. Smoke was billowing out the top of the smoker for almost 7 hours, and that was with the AFC smoker only half full of pellets. You should get at least 11-14 hours of burn time from filling it almost completely. Actual burn rate depends on what type of pellets you use.
As for the cheese it seemed to turn out well. I smoked 2 pieces of Balderson Extra Old Cheddar for 2 1/2 hours with an internal temp in the smokehouse between 80-85 degrees F. I left the bottom of the smoker door open a 1/4 inch for a little extra air circulation, to ensure the pellets did not go out.
Guess what? I built a home made cold smoker of my own design from a $2 value village Angel food cake tray. I used the same principles from the commercial cold smoking pellet burners by drilling out many ventilation holes instead of using stainless mesh or corrugated stainless tubes.
I tested my home made smoker yesterday for the first time, cold smoking cheddar cheese in my big chief clone aluminum smoker. Cheese is notoriously hard to smoke because a very low temp must be maintained. Normally an aluminum smoker with an electric heater burning chips could never accomplish this feat.
I will outline how I accomplished this via pictures. First the $2 Angel food cake tray.
Next I drilled many small holes in the bottom of the AFC tray. Then I drilled out the sides and middle of the tray with larger holes. I purchased a 20lb bag of Louisiana Grills New England Apple pellets from CDN Tire for $19.99 and I was off to the races for my first try at cheese smoking.
I first microwaved the smoker pellets 3 times at 111 seconds to remove any excess moisture to ensure it stayed lit. Then I filled the AFC Cold Smoker I'd made aprox half full with pellets. I lit one end of the pellets with a small propane torch for a few minutes and let it burn for 5 minutes more, to ensure it was burning well. Once the pellets have been burning solidly for 5 or more minutes, blow the flames out.
I bent the tabs down a bit on the part where the chip pan usually sits in my aluminum smoker, and my AFC cold smoker fit on top perfectly. That's it, no electricity required to keep it burning.
From the picture it might not appear to be generating a lot of smoke, but take my word for it, it is making as much smoke as a pan of chips would burning normally on the electric element. Smoke was billowing out the top of the smoker for almost 7 hours, and that was with the AFC smoker only half full of pellets. You should get at least 11-14 hours of burn time from filling it almost completely. Actual burn rate depends on what type of pellets you use.
As for the cheese it seemed to turn out well. I smoked 2 pieces of Balderson Extra Old Cheddar for 2 1/2 hours with an internal temp in the smokehouse between 80-85 degrees F. I left the bottom of the smoker door open a 1/4 inch for a little extra air circulation, to ensure the pellets did not go out.
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