My New Cold Smoker

We recently returned from Catering a Film Shoot at a motion picture studio here in Utah. Our kitchen trailer was parked outside of the woodworking shop where about twelve carpenters manufacture stuff for movie sets, furniture, etc. Although we were only required to feed the cast & crew, one morning I had food left over at breakfast and decided to offer to feed the carpenters rather than let the food go to waste. When they finished breakfast the lead carpenter came out to the kitchen and wanted to know where I bought my ham...he said it was the best ham he had ever had. I told him that I "made" the ham using pork loin that I cured, cold smoked first in a cardboard box, and then hot smoked in my smoker. Well to make a long story short, we went into the "let's make a deal" mode and he offered to make a cold smoker for me in return for a ham. After giving him the inside dimensions that I wanted from memory (I remembered the racks were 14" square)but I wanted it deeper, 17", to accommodate a set of jerky racks that I had previously bought from Cabela's. Two hours later he came back with this "thing of beauty"


Unfortunately I couldn�t tell him where the entrance hole needed to be cut on the bottom so he told me to apply some food coloring to the chimney of my hot smoker and carefully locate the cold smoker where I wanted it to be. I did that, leaving enough room on the back to be able to reach the thermostat control. I used a hole saw like you would use to install a door knob to cut the hole. The dark piece of wood on the top of the down swinging door is the handle, contoured on the back side to grip the door. The door also serves as a loading shelf...I use a length of dowel
to support the door in the horizontal position.



After cutting the entrance hole I applied eight coats of verathane, lightly sanded between coats, because this puppy is going to live outdoors with my smoker underneath it....rain, snow or shine. By pure luck the cover that came with my smoker fits perfectly over the cold smoker and extends far enough down to protect the thermostat on my hot smoker. I�m not worried about the durability of the stainless steel below because I routinely treat it with a product called �sheila shine� designed specifically for stainless steel.



I chose jerky for the maiden voyage. The jerky turned out perfect, drying slightly over a period of about three hours (pellicle?) And the cold smoke seemed to impart a milder, less bitter hickory flavor prior to hot smoking at 170 degrees. I didn�t want to �cook� the jerky, just dry it out to the texture that I prefer.



I'm really happy with this cold smoker. The plywood that it's made of doesn't conduct heat so it stays at 50 degrees internal, no ice to worry about and manage, a convenient shelf for loading and unloading, and a place to store all my BBQ "stuff" when I'm not using it. One thing that did supprise me though was the amount of moisture accumulation in the box...I guess it should't have now that I think about it. I'm glad now that I applied varathane on the inside of the box because before reading the label on the can I was afraid of imparting a chemical flavor.
CB