Hand Held Smoker

[TJHarris]

In the season premiere of Top Chef on Bravo, one of the contestants uses a hand held smoke generator. Has anyone seen this and know where to find one? It looks intrigueing.

[Chris Hennes]

In the season premiere of Top Chef on Bravo, one of the contestants uses a hand held smoke generator.  Has anyone seen this and know where to find one?  It looks intrigueing.

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Polyscience makes one, available here.

[BrandonPHX]

I'd like to know if you could use this to bacon. Normal cold smoking set-ups are kind of a PITA. I'm wondering if you could just "marinated" a cured pork belly in smoke and have the same effect as a traditional cold smoking set-up.

I suppose the smoke would condense if left in the fridge, so I'm guessing you'd have to "marinate" on the counter.

Anyone ever tried it? I'd love to know the results.

[Chris Hennes]

I'd like to know if you could use this to bacon. Normal cold smoking set-ups are kind of a PITA. I'm wondering if you could just "marinated" a cured pork belly in smoke and have the same effect as a traditional cold smoking set-up.

I suppose the smoke would condense if left in the fridge, so I'm guessing you'd have to "marinate" on the counter.

Anyone ever tried it? I'd love to know the results.

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Personally, I hot-smoke bacon, and I use an awful lot of smoke compared to the amount this little gadget puts out. I guess if you were holding the smoke in you could use less, but I'd be pretty surprised if you could just fill a box with smoke and cured belly, seal it off, and end up with bacon in a few hours. Of course, feel free to prove me wrong... it would be slick if it worked.

[Daniel]

I like how they went with the old school wooden bowl.. I use to have something very similar in High School.. I thinkl all one needs is some rubber tubing and a Greatful Dead album..

Edited March 17, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[Darcie B]

What Daniel said - I don't need to run out and buy a new contraption, I just need to dig around in the back of the closet! I wonder if one that used, um, water filtration would work...?

Edited March 17, 2008 by Darcie B (log)

[Daniel]

Grasscity has one too..

http://shop.grasscity.com/shop/grasscity/MISP39.html

[cdh]

For something a little more useful, you might look into beekeeper's smokers... They're handheld smoke generators...

http://beesmokers.com/

[TJHarris]

Thanks everyone for the insight. I will check the local head shop. I guess not knowing where to find "specialty equipment" is one more disadvantage to not having been a stoner in high school.

[jmfangio]

There's a great post here with step by step instructions on how to construct your own out of a computer keyboard vacuum, and a bowl and screens from a head shop.

[dougal]

There's a great post here with step by step instructions on how to construct your own ...

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It was a distant memory of that page that was stirred when I first saw this thread.

The important thing is to be realistic about what you might achieve with the smoke from approximately a half inch cube of sawdust, with the heat having to come from the sawdust burning.

Such things are fine for presentational effect, such as in the link posted by jmfangio.

BUT, I'm sorry to say its simply not realistic to think of such a thing as being effective for smoking bacon, ham, fish... other than, just maybe, one slice at a time.

For cold smoking, one doesn't need particularly dense smoke, but one does need smoke for some hours.

Getting smoke for hours, on a domestic scale, without much heat, and without constant attention, frankly isn't totally simple. Or else its a bit expensive.

The simplest domestic cold-smoking route would seem to be Bradley's smoke generator module, connected with a couple of yards of (heat-shedding) ducting to your smoking chamber. However, at UK prices, apart from the initial cost of the unit, those pucks would have a significant cost per hour for non-commercial use.

I'm having some success with a home-made contraption using an aquarium pump to provide a constant supply of (and the only supply of) combustion air. I can get an hour and a half of completely unattended cold smoking using fine oak sawdust. I'm going to try coarser dust and/or a higher pressure pump...

... my thinking is that while the combustion air volume limits the burner area (and hence the amount of smoke and heat), the pump's maximum pressure sets the limit to the depth of dust that it can maintain airflow through - and hence the stock of fuel, so the duration of the burn. Similarly coarser dust would be more air permeable (so stackable deeper for the same pressure) and ought to be slower burning, both of which effects should extend the time before refilling.