Smoker help…

Hi guys. I need some help or ideas with a smoker I am making. What I came across is a proofing box. It is about 24″ wide, 36″ deep, and 6′ tall. The bottom has a slide out box that encases the heat element and fan. The fan blows the heat up a channel duct in the rear of the box and from there it exits via slit vents every few inches from top to bottom. All well and good to this point. The unit was previously used in a restaurant as a way to keep prime ribs warm I believe and was left filthy dirty. After I got it scrubbed out I plugged it in and let it run about 90 minutes and she works fine and gets real hot. I’m guessing about 200 to 250 degrees. I need to put my thermometer in it to see for sure. Is this temp going to be enough to make sausage, snacksticks as well as ribs and chicken?

The box is made from aluminum and I plan to leave it outside. I know it will need to be insulated and need suggestions here as well. I’d like to put some on the inside and have room for about 1/2 thick. What kind can be used? I want to use some type of sheet style stuff that can be cut and fitted. For winter use I’m also going to use an additional 1″ think sheeting around the outside as a blanket. I think this will work fine.

Any ideas or suggestions about the temp or insulation would be appreciated. I’ll take some photos of it and post them and maybe that will help explain my questions as well. Thanks!

225-250 has been my rule of thumb. If you can reach that you will be fine for most meats and fish. Chicken I still recommend a final cook if you see any red in the joints. This allows you to smoke them and keep some moisture in the meat. Otherwise you end up cooking chicken too long, and it gets tough. I do ducks and geese at those temps, and it works very well! Venison sausage too!

You probably already know this, but you can use digital thermometers that have a sending unit in the grill, and the receiver in your house with alarms for over/under temp. REALLY cool!

Coldsmoking can be done at temps as low as 150. I have heard 125 even. Myself and most guys I know go with the 200-250. I like to maintain 180 to 200 for the initial smoking then trun up to 250 for the last hour. Bacterias is killed at 200.

A suggestion on making brines. Don’t over do the salt. Start slowly and work it up to your taste. Lots of people say the brine should float an egg. That is ok if you like very salty stuff. The most I normally go is 2 cups in 3gals of water.

On insulatig. Don’t think I would mess with the inside at all. Want to make as easy to clean as possible. Also don’t want to introduce and new smells or chemicals. Just do the outside, and you will be fine. That styrofoam with the foil on one side works well. Foil side in. The cover with what ever. Have seen peple even use plywood and nothing more. Temp isn’t getting hot enough to start a fire.

For lots of goodies you can take a look at the sausagemaker.com . Everything you need and then some.

Happy smoking,

Steve

Good points Steve! One new thing I have done for brining now is taking salt and sugar, or salt and terriaki or Worstershire (Sp?) and salt to taste. Rub it into the meat good, and vacuum seal it in a Foodsaver bag for 24 hours. MAN is that good! We just did it with Alaskan salmon and venison recently.

Chris- that is a good idea. Can see where that would work great for meat. For some fish may be tuff still. We smoke a lot of whitefish. For them the bucket of brine water sure is a pain.

I do most of my marinades with the foodsaver. Even without the so called 1hour stuff meats are good to go in about an hour. With the 1hr stuff around 20mins is normally good.

Have you tried brown sugar with your brines? That’s all we use now and works great. Normally for fish all we use is 1 gal water 1 cup salt 2-3 cups brown sugar. Nothing more. Forget the allspice it doesn’t seem to do much. A simple brine seems to work well.

A friend and I have been playing with turkeys a little. I have hot smoked a few on the grill and 2 in the smoker. All without any brine. Man they come out great. My friend has brined his and they were still good, but not like the plain. Took a lot longer to smoke with the extra moisture.

Ohh- almost forgot the wood chips!! APPLE, APPLE, and did I say APPLE. Seems to give the best flavor. I hate mesquite. Hickory works ok on some fish, but apple still bettter. Another notch up even if you can find them are the Jack Daniesls chips. Made from the barrels, man is it god. i have even started to soak the apple chips in JD. Going to try a few others that way as well. Like Southern Comfort, and Captain Morgan. I try to keep the proportions there even. I shot for the chips, and for for me. Until both are good to go.

Steve

Steve

Can someone suggest a good smoker to buy? I think I read that electric is better than charcoal. Is that correct?

Electric or gas! Can control the temp a whole lot better. I have used charcoal, and it is a huge pain. Tep goes up and down all the time. No way to control it. You can get some fairly inexpensive smokers from walmart, gander mountian, cabelas, etc. They all work fine to start out. Then as you get more into it can spend the big bucks. I just found an old steel fridge I am thinking of convrting. May not now as i see the cost is pretty high as compared to buying a better unit.

Steve

You guys sure know how to make me hungry this early in the morning!!

me too!

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Good points Steve! One new thing I have done for brining now is taking salt and sugar, or salt and terriaki or Worstershire (Sp?) and salt to taste. Rub it into the meat good, and vacuum seal it in a Foodsaver bag for 24 hours. MAN is that good! We just did it with Alaskan salmon and venison recently.

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Gee thanks for the call Tuck!

Anytime Satz! Corey has my smoker (I hope! ) we can smoke anytime!

Steve, I use brown sugar in everything. I like the sweet/salty effect on the fish and the venison. I will take and add salt to the brown sugar until the balance tastes right. Seal ‘er up, and smoke like a mad man!

I used to have an old fridge that worked great for large loads of sausage, etc. now I use a ‘Lil Chief Electric, or my brother smokes with a barrel smoker with indirect smoke/heat. That is the BEST in my opinion.

If you’ve ever wondered what to do with goose breasts, they are excellant Deep Fried !!! Josh did some up saturday night…. yummy !!! Now I am hungry for them again… got anymore Josh ???

big G

Ask Josh about my bacon wrapped goose breasts marinated in BBQ/Terriyaki!
Bite sized chunks grilled on a skewer until the bacon is done. A beer or six, and you are in heaven.

I saw the Bradley propane smoker at Sportsmans Warehouse in Woodbury for $99. Same half price as last year. They use Bradley wood pucks and a 1lb propane tank and AA batteries. I picked one up and will try it in a couple weeks. I’ll let you know how it works out.

We built a microprocessor controlled Bradley knockoff for a buddy at work and it works great. We bought out Gander on wood pucks when they closed a store for remodeling at a good deal.I see Bradley now offers a digitally controlled version as well. Stainless $500 black painted $400. They are pretty spendy but I’ve tasted the results and they are AWESOME!

Good Luck,

Ferny

Chunks of wild turkey breast wrapped in bacon, marinated in Italian dressing grllled on the ice with a cold one. It won’t be long now.

I finally had a chance to run this unit and get it to its max operating temperature indoors. I was a bit disappointed to see I can only get 175 degrees inside of it. I plan to insulate it but even then I won’t have enough power outside in the cold. The element is easy to get to but I wonder how I can tell what I’d need to do to make sure a replacement has more power, this one has no markings that I can tell so I have no idea of its output.

Any suggestions?

Would you have the ability to put a hot-plate in it? I have seen them where they look exactly like a stove burner in a small form. I would bet that would work. No CO either.

I’ve been mulling this over for a few hours now and have some thoughts. But to answer your question yes a hot plate can be installed. And that is a question in itself. By hot plate are you suggesting the type people use in a cabin? I know they can be bought in single or double burner but I have no idea if they have a lot of heating power.

Another thing I came across is burners that look like a stove burner but are made for smokers. Again not sure what they have for power.

A couple years ago my dad bought a Big Chief electric smoker. It is basically stiff tin foil with a way to weak heater. (It took me nearly 20 hours to dry venison jerky). We had tried at first to make sausage sticks. No dice, wouldn’t get over 90 inside. We ended up putting charcoal in the burner pan and I was surprised that just 6-8 pieces raised the temp by nearly 40 degrees. So I wonder if that will work for me now?

Yet I like the ease of a thermostat and consistent heat. If I were to add an additional heating element or hot plate I wonder if I can still use the existing thermostat? My uncle is a maintenance man at a butter plant and might be able to help. He deals with this sort of thing in a round about way I think.

I appreciate the ideas and tips. While I’m very anxious to get this unit running I prefer to have it right the first time and a little extra waiting is well worth it.

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By hot plate are you suggesting the type people use in a cabin? I know they can be bought in single or double burner but I have no idea if they have a lot of heating power.

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Remember, you are only looking for 200 to 250 deg.

Thanks Tuck, that’s the route I’ll go. I’ll first try the burner (wired in to make use of external t-stat if possible) or in tandem if extra heat is needed for outside.

Anyone have any info on Bradley® Digital Smokers good or bad?

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Anyone have any info on Bradley® Digital Smokers good or bad?

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Steve I have talked to a couple guys with the Bradley Smokers and they say that they are the cats meow. I’d love to have one just can’t afford it. I see they do sell the smoker chamber separate so a guy could fab that onto an existing box.

Riv, You could use a 1 burner electric hot plate from Wally World. Buddy put one in his for $8 on clearance. Works great when you need the extra heat.

Steve One friend bought a scratch and dent original stainless Bradley direct from the company. It is awesome!

We built a dual digital controlled knock off that works great. Complete with motorized puck pusher and puck stack. 1 heat control for the smoker an 1 for heat. Luckily work had many scrap parts we could use
Digital temp controllers are readily available on ebay for ~$20.

I just looked at the digital Bradleys and they look awful nice! Too bad we didn’t apply for a patent first Tons of recipes an forum on there site. I think this is the best consumer model out there for less than $500.

Ferny.

as i said on the other “smoker” post, go to http://www.sausagemaker.com they have everything that you need to up date the smoker that you have. it is the best site that i have found for smoking. they also answer all of your questions when you call them. they know what they are talking about when it comes to smoking any kind of meat…………..tom fellegy

PS tuck…

200 – 250deg is cooking, not smoking

Appreciate the link to TSM. They have a lot of good resources there for sure. The reason I need to be able to get an internal temperature over 200 is this unit will be used outside. My max temp before was inside a shop heated at about 70 degrees. Plus I also plan to smoke cook as well as just regular smoking.

I still need ideas on what to use to insulate this bugger. I’m thinking of trying some kind of a blanket type for the inside that would have a foil back on it. Heading to Menard’s this week and will look there too. I want the inside insulated year around and the outside I plan to build a tight fitting insulated box to slide the unit in. Now with deer hunting over I should have time to work on it more.

call the 800 number at TSM and talk to them direct, they should be able to give you some ideas about the insulation………tom fellegy

Was looking through the closet the other day and found a box of Bradley disks hide away I think Santa has brought me a smoker!!!! With that said, I’ll be needing a good cook book. What are some and I sure hope there is a smoker that goes along with those chips.

Oh yea Santa did bring me a Bradley Smoker!