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Cold Smoking: Optimum Temperature?


Chris Hennes

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I see lots of discussion here about smoking, and some tidbits on cold smoking, but the only temperature advice I see given is to keep the temp below 90 degrees F. Is there an "optimum" temperature for cold smoking? Food-dependent, maybe? It is getting a bit chilly here in Central Pennsylvania, and my cold-smoking rig is a bit "ghetto"... I have a bullet-style smoker that I have made a new lid for that directs the smoke through a piece of dryer hose into a Rubbermaid "smoke box." Therefore, there is basically no protection from the elements. Will this be a problem in the dead of winter?

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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you have two main problems with smoking at temperatures that are too low.

1. at the extreme end, you will not get any smoke penetration in frozen meats.

2. assuming your concern is a little more reasonable (no reason to think many people are as crazy as i am in smoking no matter what the weather is) if your temp is much lower than 60 degrees you will have to smoke longer to get the texture you want (mainly as i understand it from moisture loss) that you end up taking a very long time, and getting possible a stronger smoky taste that you might want with more delicate meats and fish.

all in all though, it is a much easier problem to deal with than too much heat. you can either add a few pieces of coal to your smoke box, cut the length of dryer hose, or even add a couple of coals or a small metal heating coil into the bullet smoker itself. this is the primary reason no one worries about keeping heat down.... making more heat is pretty easy.

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Thanks. Yeah, I figured if the meat was frozen solid it probably wouldn't work so well: I am thinking that if the temp of the smoke box is lower than 40 or 50 it is too low, but like you said, more heat is easy. I could always wrap the box in insulation, if it came to that. I am more thinking along the lines of, since more heat is easy, is there a "best" temperature to shoot for, on days when I have control.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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it depends on too many factors, not the least of which is your taste for smoky food... also the type of meat, type of wood, amount of patience...

The greatest fun of that is the experimenting. I try to keep my rig around 65 degrees, but it took many beers before i decided that. Come to think of it, i might have to verify that this weekend.

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Chris,

With salmon, the texture of you meat should be a function of the curing process. You will get the best results by smoking well under 90 degrees. I will assume that 50 to 75 degrees would be optimal.

This is easiest to achieve by using an electric heat source to smoke heat and sawdust. By restricting the air flow to the chips, you produce smoke without much heat. I use an electric charcoal starter in a flower pot that is sealed to the smoke vent with aluminized tape.

Tim

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Chris, can you show us a picture of your cold smoker?

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Chris, can you show us a picture of your cold smoker?

I'll snap some tonight and try to remember to post them. It is practically a piece of art :rolleyes: . Thanks for all the advice about temperatures: I guess the best way to approach this is with a methodical test. I love smoked salmon, so that shouldn't be a problem :).

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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Chris,

You will not have much of a problem cold smoking in the dead of winter in Central PA. I did a lot of cold smoking of bacon and sausages when I was in grad school at PSU and never had a problem with it being too cold. My smoking rig was two bullet smoker stacked one atop the other. Very ghetto, but it produced some great smoked charcuterie. What type of heat source are you using? I use a cheap hot plate that never heats the smoking chamber above 85F. -Mark

How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd? -W. Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, IV, 3:
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That my friend is a fine example of redneck engineering and I for one am glad the children saw it.

That is awesome. I am a little concerned about the plastic, but you could place the item in an oven bag inside said ghettotastic cold smoker.

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That my friend is a fine example of redneck engineering and I for one am glad the children saw it. 

That is awesome.  I am a little concerned about the plastic, but you could place the item in an oven bag inside said ghettotastic cold smoker.

Since the idea is that the interior of the smoke box never exceeds 90 degrees, and the food is never in contact with the plastic itself, it should not be a problem. Especially during the winter, when the smoke will cool substantially before even entering the smoke box. During the warm months the bottom will get filled with ice to keep everything cool. I haven't decided whether to poke drainage holes or not... thoughts?

I wish I could claim the idea as my own, but of course I saw this sort of setup elsewhere on the internet, which is what sparked the idea.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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What is the interior like? My only concern when I said the plastic was getting too hot and adding to the smoke at the inlet. I don't live in your area anymore and deal with mild winters/hot weather, so it guides my thinking.

I would not add drain holes even for hot weather. It just lets smoke escape. I would cool the smoke tube or lengthen it before that.

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What is the interior like?  My only concern when I said the plastic was getting too hot and adding to the smoke at the inlet.  I don't live in your area anymore and deal with mild winters/hot weather, so it guides my thinking.

The interior is just a wire rack that suspends the meat/etc. above the bottom to allow smoke to circulate around it, and to keep it above the bed of ice, when that is present. If the smoke entering turns out to be hotter than I want I am planing on making a collar that I can add ice or water to to keep the temperature at the inlet down. I may go ahead and do it anyway to eliminate the need for adding ice to the smoke chamber itself, which currently requires opening the chamber.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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How did you top the Brinkman, is that wood?

Yeah, it's one of those pine slabs that is intended to be used as a table top. I have been wondering if I need to worry about the oils from the pine introducing off flavors, so I may coat the bottom with the remaining insulating tape I used to assemble the tubing. Any thoughts on this?

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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For cold smoking, I've been playing around with a simple set up. A can filled with wood chips and a wood burner/soldering iron inserted into the can. This creates smoke with little to no heat. I do this in my gas grill but any closed vessel would work. This works well for things that don't need a lot of smoke or long smoking time.

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For cold smoking, I've been playing around with a simple set up.  A can filled with wood chips and a wood burner/soldering iron inserted into the can.  This creates smoke with little to no heat.  I do this in my gas grill but any closed vessel would work.  This works well for things that don't need a lot of smoke or long smoking time.

That sounds slick. I've actually been experimenting with ways to do long smoke-times in the Brinkman. My current strategy is to put three or four separate containers with wood chips in them, each also filled with a different amount of water. The chips don't start to smolder until the water has evaporated, so they function like time-release capsules. My goal is to be able to do a relatively unattended 24-hour smoke to do things like Andouille sausage (which smokes for a really long time, at least according to the recipe in Garde Manger).

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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That is one beautiful smoking rig.  Very, very clean.  Don't worry about the plastic, just keep it clean.

Clean being a relative concept here, of course.

My goal is to be able to do a relatively unattended 24-hour smoke to do things like Andouille sausage (which smokes for a really long time, at least according to the recipe in Garde Manger).

A long time is right, paricularly if you're talking about a cajun sausage you want to flavor something like gumbo instead of being main protein sliced up next to some starch.

Which Garde Manger? CIA's?

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Which Garde Manger? CIA's?

Yeah, sorry. I consider Ruhlman's book to be the inspiration manual, but I find myself turning to CIA's book when I'm looking for a bit more depth, or more recipes. I think it has four different bratwurst in it, for example.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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I like your idea of the collar that you could add ice to so you don't crack the lid. You could put a bung for a thermometer in the middle of the rig to monitor what the item is feeling.

Edited by Doodad (log)
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Is there an "optimum" temperature for cold smoking? Food-dependent, maybe?

Keith Erlandson gives the general suggestion of 10/29ºC (50/85ºF) and "ideally" 24/26ºC (75/80ºF).

Kate Walker (from a commercial smoking background) wants tighter limits 21/31ºC (70/88ºF) and "ideally about 25ºC (77ºF)"

I've actually been experimenting with ways to do long smoke-times in the Brinkman. My current strategy is to put three or four separate containers with wood chips in them, each also filled with a different amount of water. The chips don't start to smolder until the water has evaporated, so they function like time-release capsules. ...

Chris, don't forget that that water (from your delay mechanism) has to go somewhere. You really don't want high humidity (you'd certainly like to avoid condensation) in the food chamber...

The good thing about cold smoking is that it does not have to be done as one single continuous campaign. You can stop whenever and continue tomorrow if you choose.

The time of smoking depends on the smoke density. Generally, you want some drying (weight loss) during cold smoking. So you are trying to shoot for a certain amount of weight loss in a certain time (dependant on airflow, temp and humidity in the chamber), and trying to get your chosen amount of smoke there in the same time!

Its bloody hard to get temperature, airflow, humidity and smoke density to be in any way independent of each other!

So its all going to be a bit approximate. If you are lucky/skilled/blessed then you may be able to hold one of the variables fairly reproduceably (from batch to batch) constant. Then you can try to find means to adjust other variables by independent means... :cool: I said try... :smile:

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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Chris, don't forget that that water (from your delay mechanism) has to go somewhere. You really don't want high humidity (you'd certainly like to avoid condensation) in the food chamber...

Yeah, this has occurred to me. It was never a problem before when hot smoking because this being a water smoker it is already pretty humid, and it doesn't really matter. I was thinking of putting a condensation chamber in right after the smoke leaves the main smoker: this would essentially consist of a box that could be filled with ice periodically: the smoke would mostly pass right through, but any water vapor would condense out. The engineering/construction challenge is appealing, here, but I'm not sure how much smoke would condense out with the water. Homemade liquid smoke!

The good thing about cold smoking is that it does not have to be done as one single continuous campaign. You can stop whenever and continue tomorrow if you choose.

Wow, I never thought of that. I guess I was just only thinking of it as one continuous smoke session. Thanks for that tidbit - I'm sure it will come in handy.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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From what I have read, cold-smoking is done ideally at between 70 and 80 degrees F but any temperature below 100 degrees F should provide smoke without cooking the food in question.

I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with cold-smoked salmon. If you are interested, you can read about the results here.

BTW, I love your rig. It's very similar to mine but mine's even lower-budget! :biggrin:

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