I got the idea from one of Alton Brown's ideas. So did this guy:
http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/elecsmoker.html
I'm thinking of making one of these specificly to smoke chiles, since I already have a Texas style smoker. The problem I've had trying to smoke my own chipotles is that they end up tasting as much like grease and meat as they do smoke....so I think they need their own smoker.
Now I read here:
http://www.barbecuen.com/faqsnew.htm
that because metal garbage cans have a coating of zinc that this is a bad idea. If heated to 400º the zinc becaomes toxic. 400º, BTW, is higher than you ever want for smoking but if using fire temps can and do spike. Someone else on another message board, who claims to have a background in assessment of human health risk from exposure to unregulated hazardous waste sites, said that any extra exposure to zinc would be minimal and not enough to worry about. People do take zinc as a supplement.
Thoughts?
http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/elecsmoker.html
I'm thinking of making one of these specificly to smoke chiles, since I already have a Texas style smoker. The problem I've had trying to smoke my own chipotles is that they end up tasting as much like grease and meat as they do smoke....so I think they need their own smoker.
Now I read here:
http://www.barbecuen.com/faqsnew.htm
that because metal garbage cans have a coating of zinc that this is a bad idea. If heated to 400º the zinc becaomes toxic. 400º, BTW, is higher than you ever want for smoking but if using fire temps can and do spike. Someone else on another message board, who claims to have a background in assessment of human health risk from exposure to unregulated hazardous waste sites, said that any extra exposure to zinc would be minimal and not enough to worry about. People do take zinc as a supplement.
Thoughts?