Fry's Smoke House - Smoking, Curing & Barbeque Discussions on Home Brew Forums

Thym

This discussion was created from comments split

frydogbrews

here is a pic of the modified smoking rig for this season

frydogbrews

i was putting three inch hickory logs into the firebox and still the big smoker won't go above 70 degrees

frydogbrews

i was wondering how big a fire i could make inside the firebox without it melting

frydogbrews

turns out a fire the size of mordor won't do it, so i say its impossible

frydogbrews

good to know

frydogbrews

the whole cooking area of the real smoker is full of trays of water to boost humidity inside the plywood smoker

frydogbrews

the plywood smoker took 20 minutes to build

frydogbrews

2x4's line the sides of two pieces of plywood, the other two pieces screw into those 2x4's.

frydogbrews

then at the very top of two of the plywood sides there are pieces of 2x4 screwed in horizontally creating an edge that the smoke sticks rest on

frydogbrews

smoke sticks are just 2x4 with nails in them to hang the meat on

frydogbrews

flames were bushing out from around the door of the firebox earlier, i don't think i coudl make a hotter fire in there without some napalm

frydogbrews

that's just a regular dryer vent connecting the real smoker to the plywood smoker. i was worried about it drawing properly, but that turned out to be a non issue.

frydogbrews

its filled with 100 pounds of meat. 1/3 in 2 pound logs, 1/3 in brat size casings (about 2 feet long) and one third in snack stick casings (15 mm i think)

Thym

so you access the inside through the top?

frydogbrews

if you didn't have a smoker like mine, you could easily attach a dryer vent to the breather hole on the lid of a regular weber grill and would work great. probably couldn't build a huge raging fire like i have been doing, but you could easily cold smoke or hot smoke whatever you want

jlw

love the snack sticks

frydogbrews

Lakewood said:
so you access the inside through the top?

the top is the only access, just a piece of plywood cut slightly larger than the body. i cut a small corner off the bottom, maybe two inches, to help the draw. you can see it in the first pic.

scoob

Simply amazing! Simplicity in building a box, attaching a dryer vent from your smoker to the cold smoke shack.

I'm so stealing this idea....

frydogbrews

they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

frydogbrews

when they lose 30% of weight, they are ready to munch, but i like harder salami, so i let them go at least 40%.

here is time table for my 40% weight loss

snack stick size = 1.5 weeks

brat size = 3-4 weeks

giant salami log size = 8-10 weeks

jlw

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

this could be my problem. I don't have a basement. Only a tall crawl space

Thym

i have a small shed, formerly the HBF server shed, that i could probably repurpose for doing some cold smoking....

Fuzzy

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

i don't have a basement. :((

frydogbrews

jlw said:

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

this could be my problem. I don't have a basement. Only a tall crawl space

yeah, but virginia has some humid air in the winter. many people just leave them outside in a shed or anything. i could just leave them in the plywood smoker if i wanted to. especially if you're talking about the snack stick size and brat size

Thym

jlw said:

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

this could be my problem. I don't have a basement. Only a tall crawl space

i think i could just leave it outside in the winter.

Thym

FromZwolle said:

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

i don't have a basement. :((

thats because you live in a van down by the river

frydogbrews

FromZwolle said:

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

i don't have a basement. :((

same goes for you FZ, just leave it in the plywood smoker. the only person who coulnd't do that is Scoob probably, and curly.

jlw

frydogbrews said:

jlw said:

frydogbrews said:
they will get smoked for about 16 hours or so, medium smoke, all hickory.

then they will be moved to basement to dry. drying conditions need to be between 40 and 70 degrees and 40%-70% humidity. pretty much everyones basement

this could be my problem. I don't have a basement. Only a tall crawl space

yeah, but virginia has some humid air in the winter. many people just leave them outside in a shed or anything. i could just leave them in the plywood smoker if i wanted to. especially if you're talking about the snack stick size and brat size

If that's the case I could use the crawl space. It's tall enough that I can stand up in

frydogbrews

with the curing spice, the meat won't freeze until it been below 25 degrees for a few hours, so just plan accordingly. freezing doesn't hurt it really, it just slows down the drying

frydogbrews

and all the meat is 50% venison and 50% happy pig that a buddy raised.

Thym

frydogbrews said:
with the curing spice, the meat won't freeze until it been below 25 degrees for a few hours, so just plan accordingly. freezing doesn't hurt it really, it just slows down the drying

i dont have to worry about that

frydogbrews

for the smoking period, you don't want the meat to dry at all, that's why the water is inside the body of the metal smoker. when i opened it to take the pictures of the meat inside, the wife commented that it felt and smelled like a meaty rainforest inside. perfect.

frydogbrews

also, since i added bactoferm meat yeast into it, this is technically brewing!

Fuzzy

frydogbrews said:
also, since i added bactoferm meat yeast into it, this is technically brewing!

lactofermentation, so technically you're into sour beers now. way to be trendy!

jlw

Here is my grill/smoker combo I could use like your set up.

frydogbrews

just moved sausage inside, to the curing room. room is resting at 50 degrees with 55% humidity. as good as it gets for a home salumi process!

C_B

Lots of great info here. That meat rainforest looks amazing.

frydogbrews

the sausage is drying nicely

frydogbrews

thats all 100 pounds. there are 5 of those smoke sticks

frydogbrews

here is a little closer up so you can see the deliciousness

Thym

looks fantastic fry

scoob

I'm going to break in and eat your basement.

Thym

azscoob said:
I'm going to break in and eat your basement.

i don't think that would be a safe thing to attempt

frydogbrews

yeah, i have attack chickens

scoob

frydogbrews said:
yeah, i have attack chickens

Eat them too....

I will pack lots of hot sauce....

And tums.