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Smoke Somethin

Got this char-griller premium kettle for my birthday, it says its a smoker too.

So after a little research and about 40 bucks for charcoal baskets and a pizza stone I'm gonna give it a shot.

Here's the kettle

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Charcoal baskets

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Modified grate out of my old grill, had to cut the sides off, and hit it with a hammer a couple times so it would get past these bolts.

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Pizza Stone(heat diffuser)

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Water/drip pan

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Forgot to add the apple wood, it wasn't that bad to open everything back up. Glad I took out some of the center of the old grate.

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Iron mikes mustard Bbq for a binder and Montreal steak, some minced onions, salt and pepper on the rub.

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Questions, comments, and suggestions all welcome. This will be my smoking/grilling thread.

Bout to slap the meat on now!

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It's cold smoking Reggie. You need to have the smoke generator at a sufficient distance for the smoke to cool. Without heat, the draw can be a problem though.

Many just use ice trays between the smoke source and what they want to smoke. Especially if they are smoking things like, cheese, butter, chocolate.
 
Its crazy but the cop in here just gave me an idea that involved bong mechanics... What if you actually pulled the smoke through some water before it went into the chamber? It would need to be a sealed system though for sure.

Oh and GIP, that marble machine is so bad ass. I saw it before. I actually think it got added to some museum with a bunch of other music machines. And the song it plays is catchy af too. I'm out of data on the phone so I didn't watch it, but just seeing the thumbnail has the tune in my head lol.
 
Just to note, I wasn't trying to be funny with the "bong" post. I simply am uninformed about such things. Never really considered what goes into "smoking" non-meats. Again, I've learned something new here. I'm not too proud to admit. Was just trying to reconcile topic with the methods/concepts that I am familiar. 
 
The "Rube Goldberg" post was an attempt to be funny, before I learned (I've researched it now) about "cold smoking."
 
My apologies if it came across otherwise. 
 
Reggie
 
 
 
No offense here Reggie.

I like a good Rube Goldberg device. Many years ago I rented the top floor of a house with friends that were brothers. Typical young guy type place. Video games, fooze ball table in living room, fridge loaded with beer. We would set up Rube Goldberg type booby traps for each other all the time in the common areas. Firecrackers, mousetraps, fishing line, smoke bombs, firecrackers taped to waterballoons etc. I never had the college dorm experience but I can't imagine it was much different. :)
 
i am reminded of a fog machine "chiller" project i did years back to pretty good effect
it chilled the fog enough that it stayed lower for longer (like movie SFX  graveyard fog)
i used dry ice in the trashcan with the coil which lasted a long time at cooling the coil of venting duct 
 
rather than a "bong" think more like a big "Liebig Graham Condenser" except you arent using liquid to cool but rather the state which Dry Ice goes from solid to gas (sublimation) to cool the coil your smoke will be travelling through 
 
 
quick search found this guys instruct-able
 
now get to building a new Rube Goldberg device :P
 
:cheers:
 
 
Edit* a Graham condenser would be a closer comparison because of the coil
 
Your good Reggie! No offence taken. It is a tube goldbergish setup for sure. Lol

The cheese I smoked is nasty as fuck, Idk if I mentioned that. The internet says in 2-4 weeks it will be good. But I'm not completely confident. I need to get some racks for this thing, make some of these pellets into coarse sawdust. Then I should be able to get a "thin blue smoke"

Then I can try some different smoke times. I let the test batch go for about 3 hours. I was trying to wait till it looked smokey, but I think a light smoke would be plenty
 
Walchit said:
Then I can try some different smoke times. I let the test batch go for about 3 hours. I was trying to wait till it looked smokey, but I think a light smoke would be plenty
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The last batch of cheese I did using pecan went for 3 hours and it was pretty bad,  and was still bad after 2 weeks. It's been in the frig for over a month now........I guess maybe I should try it again. then throw it out. :)
 
The wait times on the cheese really do make a difference. If you have a vaccum saver type thing you can speed it up somewhat.

I really should work on a cold smoking setup. A good friend of mine was doing it for a group of us. He used his green egg with a smoke generator in the bottom that was a tin can with Sawdust/wood chips and used a soldering iron to keep them smoldering. He only did it during cold outside temps though, as the ceramics of the egg are so good at insulating heat the soldering iron would build to much heat in the summer.

He passed a couple years ago suddenly,and weird as it may sound I haven't had the heart to fool with cold smoking since.

Pecan is a pretty aggressive smoke for cheese. Best results we got were, sugar maple and apple. Oak was ok
 
Sorry to hear about your buddy ashen. But I'm sure he would love to see you smoke some cheese in his memory. I have seen people using cardboard boxes for their smoke chamber. I wanted something a little more permanent lol. I might try to make some dust out of these pellets and try another batch today.
 
Walchit said:
Oh shit, GIP that would really step up my cold smoking game. I wonder if the Co2 would have any effect on the items being smoked?

Edit: did I tell you that garlic is growing? Almost all the ones you sent are up. I don't see any from the regular garlic I got at the farmers market though. Maybe they are late bloomers
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in that design the CO2 wouldn't actually be in contact with the smoke but i dont see why you couldn't also put a block of dry ice in the smoker box to keep it cool too
(keep in mind that CO2 displaces oxygen and you need oxygen to keep the wood smoldering) 
 
I saw this and thought you might be interested.
 
"Quote:





Originally Posted by Swine Spectator 
I have the Amaz-N tube smoker. I tried smoking cheese last year with pellets, but it came out very poorly. Bitter smoke. Any tips?





Oh man... does this bring back memories. I almost trashed my Amaz-N Tube earlier this year but here's what I learned.....

1) Use absolutely dry pellets. If you have to, warm them up, nuke them, do anything you can to avoid damp or moisture laden pellets. I buy very small bags that are airtight (Pit Boss???) and avoid the large sacks that have air holes. Even then I vac seal what I don't use. One small pack of pellets gives me at least four rounds of cheese smokes.

2) Get that tube as far away from the food as possible. In doing some research I came across a cold smoking set up that had the smoke source some 20 feet away from the food area. This allows for the nasty bits to settle out before resting on the food. My first attempt had the tube in the food chamber near the cheese and "YUCK" the food was nasty. Now I use the firebox of my offset for the tube and try to make the smoke travel as far as possible. Much improved flavor on all subsequent batches.

3) Leave the firebox door open - let some of the excess smoke go elsewhere. As long as you have some smoke coming out the stack you're good to go. You do not need all the smoke the tube generates to get a smoke flavor. I'll run mine open about 3" or so - looking for light wispy smoke coming out the exhaust.

4) A little smoke goes a long way.... I've cut my smoke time down to one hour. On the harder cheeses you can get away with more but my "preference" seems to land at the one hour mark regardless of cheese type.
 
They will need 2 to 3 weeks in the fridge to mellow a bit before we dig in.

I pulled a block of Muenster out let it come up to room temp and sliced away over the weekend. OMG - it was simply heavenly. Had to really show some restraint to avoid eating the entire block. Anyway, hope some of the above items improve your cheese smoking efforts. Good luck."
 
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