View Full Version : Smoking
Has anyone tried smoking there own meat? It's something me and my Dad have been meaning to try for quite while.
The only problem is that I cant find any plans for one that doesn't invole a old fridge and I only want to make a small one.
I know that Focus DIY used to do a smoker / BBQ unit but there isn't one near me anymore.
Does anyone know where you can get the wood chips CHEAP aswell?
tenbears10
13-10-2004, 09:50
I saw a recipe in shooting times last week or the one before. It was for smoked pheasant breast but basically involved a metal tin with a lid (about the size of a bread loaf tin) with a rack in it and wood dust/chips at the base of the tin. Stick the lid on and put a trangia burner under the tin for 20 mins. Looked fantastic I will definitely try it this year.
The wood powder or chips can be got from fishing shops apparently but waste from chainsaw cutting works just as well I'm told.
Bill
Thanks Tenbears10 I'll give that a go.
tenbears10
13-10-2004, 10:00
I can try and photocopy the article for you if you would like. let me know.
Bill
That would be great. Would it be e-mailable or postal?
I picked up a BBQ/Smoker from Safeway in the summer, it takes a long time to get there, but the result is excellent, they even had a card with recipes with it and what woods are best to use. :-)
I'm sure there are instruction on how to build one in one of Huge F-W's book.
Buckshot
13-10-2004, 10:37
I'm getting one for Christmas from Lady Buckshot, hopefully along with a hammock :biggthump
Cheers
Mark
I'm sure there are instruction on how to build one in one of Huge F-W's book.
Ahhh good point I'll have to have a look through the books!
I should be getting a nice solid fuel stove for the house soon so I wonder if I could get a door put in the flue?
tenbears10
13-10-2004, 10:52
I'm sure there are instruction on how to build one in one of Huge F-W's book.
I think Hugh has a special door from outside into the chimney where he smokes all kinds of stuff. That's if I remember right.
I will see if I can get the artical on email Mark, give me a couple of days and I'll give it a go.
Bill
I used to use a couple of ( tall ) plant pots, the lower one right way up, the upper wrong way up. It works well enough to smoke a goose. Since I built the kiln out of thermalite blocks I just block out the vent on that and use it.
I think Hugh has a special door from outside into the chimney where he smokes all kinds of stuff. That's if I remember right.
I will see if I can get the artical on email Mark, give me a couple of days and I'll give it a go.
Bill
Yeah I remember that. He was doing some fish and one of them fell down into the fireplace. He just wiped it off and used it anyway.
:biggthump
Mark,
Might be stupid/obvious advice but only use the chimney to smoke stuff if you only using wood and its been really well swept to remove any coal tar or soot.
You can tie stuff up in a cloth bag and hang it straight down the chimney rather than having a door built. The advantage of this you can alter the cooking temp (ie hot smoke or cold smoke) by lifting or dropping the bag. I was going to do this until changed the pots to ones with side vents - get strong down drafts due to the trees.
HF-S does mention the chimney but he does also describe a smoke made from metal bins. Think its in River Cottage Cookbook.
I saw a recipe in shooting times last week or the one before. It was for smoked pheasant breast but basically involved a metal tin with a lid (about the size of a bread loaf tin) with a rack in it and wood dust/chips at the base of the tin. Stick the lid on and put a trangia burner under the tin for 20 mins. Looked fantastic I will definitely try it this year.
The wood powder or chips can be got from fishing shops apparently but waste from chainsaw cutting works just as well I'm told.
Bill
Problem with chainsaw waste is that it's contaminated with chain oil!! Unless you're willing to run the saw without chain oil it tastes awful and goodness knows what toxins are produced. You need to know what wood it came from too so you don't use anything nasty.
I just run the electric planer over whatever wood I want to use and then empty the dust collection bag. Takes no time at all to gather a reasonable quantity. You could always buy a cheap planer just to collect sawdust - I saw one (a power devil I think) for about £20 pounds.
You can make a good smoker out of a galvanised steel dustbin and although I use a converted freezer now, I started out with one made from a metal biscuit tin and a trangia burner.
George
tenbears10
13-10-2004, 13:20
Problem with chainsaw waste is that it's contaminated with chain oil!! Unless you're willing to run the saw without chain oil it tastes awful and goodness knows what toxins are produced. You need to know what wood it came from too so you don't use anything nasty.
George
I was told about the chainsaw idea yesterday but yours are good points, you don't want oil in the sawdust. Planings sound much healthier. Thanks
Bill
you guys might find this thing from Bush Gear (http://www.bushgear.co.uk/acatalog/Camping.html) interesting..
http://www.bushgear.co.uk/acatalog/SAVU-Salmon.jpg
Savu Oven Smoke Bags - NEW
Savu bags come from Finland, where smoking food at home is a way of life for most families and they have perfected the art with the SAVU Smoke Bags.
Made from three layers of aluminium foil, alder wood chips and a hard wood syrup the smoke bags are designed to give you a simple and mess free method of preparing delicious low fat meals in your own home without having to clean the oven
To use the smoke bags place your uncooked food inside the bag, seal the bag, place in the oven and wait for the aroma. Each bag is designed to be
used only once.
:wink:
Price: £2.50
woodland organics sell them as well.
If we really want to smoke something i guess we could put it in our small oven/grill as it smokes more than the Landy! Suppose I/we should clean it out - it a war of attrition in our house when it come to the grill/ grill pan cleaning.
woodland organics sell them as well.
Do they I can't find them on there?
sorry doesn't appear they do them any more.
Drop Jack a note and he might be able to help.
bushwacker bob
13-10-2004, 15:39
Dont use green Oak chips/sawdust.the wood chips need to be from seasoned wood,not exactly sure why,but an oak carpenter I know says there is too much tanin in the fresh stuff and it can be slightly toxic. Hickory chips are good,although not native over here,American tool handles are often made from hickory and its closely related to ash. (NOT your GB handles)
Easy way to cook small trout is to open them and smoke them over a grass fire,they only take about 15 minutes to be cooked and taste devine. :wink:
Tantalus
13-10-2004, 16:04
just for the record all smoke is toxic in some way or another
it is the toxicity that kills the bugs and helps fresh meat keep longer once smoked
as for which woods to use, the germans smoke a lot of stuff over beech which is nice
for a really special flavour see if you can find some juniper wood
Tant
My favourite is a mixture of apple wood and oak.
George
NickBristol
13-10-2004, 16:29
Does anyone have any pics they can post of a simple smoker being prepared and in use, especially the biscuit tin / trangia combo? I think I can visualise it in my head but I think I'd better see before trying :lol:
Sorry Nick no pics but I can try to describe it.
You need a large biscuit tin, a trangia burner or similar, two or three metal coat hangers and some tinfoil .
Cut the metal coat hangers into lenghts that will reach from one side of your tin to the other and straighten them out. Pierce two holes on either side of the tin about an inch in from the sides and about an inch up from the bottom. Push a lenght of coat hanger through each side and out the other. Bend the ends down so they're held in place. About 2 inches above that pierce a row of six or eight holes on either side. When you poke wires through that gives you a kind of rack to put the food on that you want to smoke.
Scatter a couple of tablespoons of the sawdust of choice on the bottom of the tin. This works best with dust rather than chips IMO. Go to the two wires immediately above and wrap the tinfoil around them making a kind of tinfoil roof above the sawdust. This is to stop drippings from the food landing in the sawdust and stopping it smouldering. Make sure you leave gaps at either end for the smoke to come through.
Lay the food you want to smoke on the top layer of wire - the grill kind of thing that you made. Put on the lid after piercing four or five pencil thick holes in it. Not too many or it gets too cool inside. Prop the tin over the trangia burner on a couple of stones. Give the burner a good fill and let it burn with the simmer ring on until its burned out.
Open your tin and enjoy.
This is a hot smoker and cooks the food rather than just smoking it - works well with thin cuts that cook quickly - great for fish, but be careful that things are cooked all the way through - if in doubt either do it again or finish it of on the fire.
PS remember to burn any coatings off the tin and the wire before you use it - amazing what they coat things with.
Hope this makes sense.
George
I had one just like george has just mentioned but I used chicken wire for the platform, which the tin sits on and chicken wire for the tray inside the tin with an old tin can filled with meths for the burner.
Simple but worked a treat for eels and trout.
I have done it in a tent, a lavvo to be precise and it worked a treat. juniper is a good tip as it does taste very nice. It is not hard to do. I guess the main thing is to make sure that whatever you are smoking doesn't get too hot, you don't want a big fire you want big smoke
NickBristol
14-10-2004, 11:14
Sorry Nick no pics but I can try to describe it.
George
Cheers for all the info george - I'm going to go try it this weekend. All I need do now is eat all the biscuits out of the tin :lol:
My brother in law is german, and got an old wood burning boiler from his father when he renovated his water system. It works just like a kelly kettle. Well he started cutting the boiler up, he chopped off the top, and the very bottom, and removed the chimney that runs up the centre. He then drilled holes at the top to put his hanging rods through. As they are threaded bars with nuts on the outside to hold them in place, he can remove them if he wants to smoke larger joints, etc.
He then got a large butterfly valve welded to the cut off top section of the boiler, which he balances on top as the lid. This is how he controls the smoke in the boiler, and it also ensures that the fire at the bottom of the boiler doesn't flare up, but smolders.
Due to it being a boiler, it has a small temperature guage on the side, and this helps him guage when to start certain stages of the smoking process. If the fire starts to burn, he smothers it with sawdust especially made for the job.
A very good use of an old bit of kit that would otherwise have been thrown away. I have had some of the trout he has smoked and it was excelllent. I get smoked trout from the shops here in germany, but it doesn't compare to fish that was caught that morning and smoked in the evening after a day being marinated in a secret recipe!
Anyway, a good thing at home, but not the sort of thing you'll take on the trail with you! How do you improvise in nature?
Walkabout
18-02-2005, 10:23
A really simple smoker is to just put your wood chips in the bottom of a wok and put a plate of what you want to smoke on top. Stick the lid on and heat over a flame (gas, Trangia, whatever) and there you go. This only hot smokes it unless you are really careful. My dad once used tea leaves, rice and sugar for the smoke producer. It made the whole house stink like cannabis and ruined the wok. :roll: :rolmao:
ridge walker
04-01-2007, 13:17
Just found this bit of kit for smoking fish, has anyone tried it or got one?
Is it any good or should i look for other ways of smoking fish?
Fish Smoker (http://www.lathams-fishing.co.uk/product-details/stkcode/20000120/category/110.html)
Jay
A really simple smoker is to just put your wood chips in the bottom of a wok and put a plate of what you want to smoke on top. Stick the lid on and heat over a flame (gas, Trangia, whatever) and there you go. This only hot smokes it unless you are really careful. My dad once used tea leaves, rice and sugar for the smoke producer. It made the whole house stink like cannabis and ruined the wok. :roll: :rolmao:
I do it, BUT I use some tin foil in the bottom of the pan, tell your old feller to get out more often! IF you can get him down from the ceiling after inhaling all that good ****!:lmao:
I love smoked foods. I just use my grill as a smoker and have smoked salmon, sausages, meats, to turkeys in there.
Also, I am lazy so I don't use wood chips. I use about six inch chunks of kiawe (our local mesquite) and wood from our dragon eye fruit trees. Mango is also good. A couple of smoldering chunks of each wood gives a HUGE amount of smoke that is extremely fragrant and the food tastes terrific. I usually only need to add more wood when smoking a turkey which takes a while or sometimes even a chicken.