Anyone ever make your own smokehouse? Do you have the plans...Is it worth it? Julie

-- julie (jbritt@ceva.net), March 14, 2002

Answers

I ahve,, just a small one,, depends on who much you wish to smoke. Can be a full size biulding,, or a barrel,, have an inlet for the smoke,, and an smaller outlet

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), March 14, 2002.

ther are a couple of plans that can be downloaded from here http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/plans/MISC.htm

-- scott (slaf99@cs.com), March 14, 2002.

Check below in the Archives (Old Questions) below; Kitchen Preservations and Others sounds promising. Good luck; smoked food definitely has a unique flavor.

-- j.r. guerra in s. tx. (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), March 14, 2002.

http://www.velvitoil.com/index.html check out Dan's side! :)

-- westbrook (westbrook_farms@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

We had a cool smoke house in AK. It looked like an outhouse. Cleats on either side to slide wire covered racks in on. A fire was built in a pit about 6 feet from it and a piece of stovepipe 3/4 buried between the fire pit and the bottom of the smoke house. The fire was started and a piece of plywood laid over the pit to divert the smoke to the smoke house. After smoking, the fish or meat was finished off in an oven, to the disired dryness. Some people left the product in the smoke house and smoked for l2 hours and left to dry for l2 for a week or so until it was dry enough to suit them. I found a 12 hour smoke long enough to give it flavor, and it dryed out fairly quickly in a low oven.

-- Duffy (hazelm@tenforward.com), March 14, 2002.

Hi Julie, here are a couple of sites for small home built smokers. brick smoker and meta l smoker I think these are great, but they might not be as inexpensive as a larger one. Depends on what you have on hand. If you have an old shed, barrel, or box, you might be able to convert it to a smoker. Like Duffy said, you just need a fire pit and a trench to carry the smoke to the "smoking chamber". I have seen a smoker made from an old file cabinet, and one made from a cardboard box. (They were for cold smoking). I have a large metal one, home made, and I couldn't live without it. I hope you try it, it's soooooo good! Best wishes!

-- cowgirlone in OK (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

Julie what kind of smoking are you interested in. There is hot smoking which cooks the food as it smokes it. For this I would recommend a Brinkman smoker that you can buy at your local Wally- World. I have one of these and have yet to be disapointed in the food.

If you are interested in cold smoking it will require curing the meat first in a brine solution and then smoked in a small building of some sort. This requires outdoor temperatures in the mid 30's to mid 40's with only smoke intering the building and may take a few weeks to properly cure. This I have not tried yet, but when I was about 5 years old we moved back from New Mexico and stayed with my Grandma who still cured her meats this way. I can still remember walking in the smokehouse with her and seeing slab bacon and hams hanging from the rafters. She would trim off a portion of meat for the day and then rub some more salt cure back on the bacon or ham that she just trimmed. She would then build a very, very small fire in the building to let it continue smoking the newly trimmed meat. We must of had much colder winters back in those days cause it seems now days it doesn't stay cold for very many days anymore.

Now I do know that at the processing plants they will brine cure your meats for about a week and then put it in a hot smoker and cook it for you if you want to pay extra. This maybe something you may want to try, do your own brine cure and then put it in a brinkman smoker for 8 to 12 hours depending.

Hope this info will help you out.

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), March 14, 2002.

had a smoked fish business in s.calif. for awhile. the lady that taught me smoked her husbands daily catch. smoked anything is better if its oily, the flavor moves thru out the meat better. I also did ducks, chicks, turks, ribs, crayfish and beef cuts. closet size is fine, insulate the 2x4 walls to maintain constant heat.I dry salted my stuff to maintain more flavor of the meat. I hot smoked for four hrs. at 160 to cook. then four hours for smoking. If you want particulars, e-mail me. ray

-- raymond gray (rorlgray@graytv.com), March 14, 2002.

we made ours out of an old refrigerator. It is proppane and is for the cooked the previous poster mentoined. There is always a low heat and the dampened wood chips are added on a little plate for the smoke.

Is it worth it? Ask anybody who has ever had any of our summer sausage, dogs, etc. simply from following a recipe! And we NEVER buy any meat of any kind at the store any more.

If you are still interested in this, write to me and I will find my book. It is EXCELLENT! recipes, instructions for all kinds of hams, sausages, even bologna, as well as WHY you do things a certain way and how to avoid illness!

-- Novina in ND (homespun@stellarnet.com), March 15, 2002.

cowgirlone, I have a question about that metal smoker link you posted. Isnt that design almost identical to the wood stove a person can make to heat their house? It seems to me that a person could make a dual purpose heating and barbequeing wood stove like that.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

okay, here is a link that explains what I was talking about in the way of a wood stove made out of two barrels. The top barrel increases fuel effiency as the smoke passes through it before going up the chimney. Of course, there are supposed to be two flues between the barrels, one on each end, for the barbeque, and also two flues going out each end of the top barrel. The Wood stove model has only one flue coming up from below in the front end, while in the back end is where the flue exits for the chimney. The cooking temperatures would be uneven, but that's the way wood cook stoves work. One would just learn how to work with it, to use it to its best advantage. You see how I get to brainstorming? lol

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

oops, forgot to post the link! www.vogelzang.com/barrel_stoves.htm

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

We just started smoking our own hams and bacon with the cold smoking process. We built a slightly pyramidal outhouse, stuck it on the top of a slope and then ran stovepipe from a small wood stove up the slope and under the ground to stick up in the smoke house (allows smoke to cool before entering the house). We have started with green apple wood, which creates a strong woodsy flavour.

Beware of the power of brine! scrub well your meat after brining or else it stays quite salty. I am going to try maple wood next - the type of wood you use determines the flavour.

-- Chenoa (ganter@primus.ca), March 15, 2002.