Smoked foods

[Chataigner]

One of the byproducts of my woodworking is a steady supply of oak chips from the planer and sawdust from the saw. We use them to cold smoke our own hams, sausages, duck breasts etc plus bought in salmon and other fish.

We bring our firewood down from the woods in 1m lengths, then cut it in half for the stove on a 60cm circular saw, that also produces a good supply of chips, though not all oak of course.

Anyone else do any smoking?

[senior]

Tried it once didn't get on with it.

[Chataigner]

Yeah, I can see why, you should only use clean hardwood, burning tyres, electric cables and the like ruins the flavour.

[Chataigner]

Here's the smoker :



The old stove is used to build a fire which is then smothered by a large heap of sawdust/planer chips. The smoke is cooled a bit by the nearly horizontal chimney and loses more heat in the smoke box which is deliberately made from thin ply to lose heat fast. Smoke exits via a flexible tube out under the eaves. This is all in the bread oven building where we also store feed for the horses and poultry - that's what the dustbins are for.



Works pretty well with a slight tendancy for the fire to go out if you dont keep an eye on it.