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Perhaps there is hardly a single person who can refuse juicy fragrant smoked piece of meat or fish. Alas, it is not always possible to find smoked products of decent quality in stores, so here we are exploring in detail how to create a cold-smoked smokehouse with our own hands.
Why did they begin to use smoking? It was noticed that after such processing the products do not spoil for a long time and retain their original taste. In ancient times, travelers and fishermen took smoked meat or fish food. This allowed them to maintain their existence in times of bad catch and long wanderings.
In the modern world, cold-smoked products are considered a delicacy. They attract gourmets with their rich aroma and richness. At home, cold-smoked smokehouse produces a special, unique taste.
The process of smoking is the processing of food with smoke, which is formed during the smoldering of small particles of wood - sawdust, shavings. When cold smoked, food is exposed to smoke at a temperature of 25-30 ° C and can take from 5 days to several weeks. The result is worth the wait. At the exit you get a dish with amazing taste. The process takes so much time due to the fact that at a temperature of 30 ° C bacteria multiply very quickly. Without completing the procedure, it can lead to the dire consequences of poisoning.
How to make a cold-smoking smokehouse
In order to make a cold-smoking smokehouse, it is necessary to equip a hearth, a food chamber, as well as a device for collecting fat. It is very important to take into account the fact that the camera must be in a sealed enclosure. By the choice of the location of the future smokehouse, too, should be approached very carefully. It should be safe from the point of view of the occurrence of accidental fires and convenient for the smoker( so that you can sit down next to the smokehouse and place the products).
Pay attention to the raw material for the hearth. Do not use wood chips and sawdust of conifers and aspen.
The best material for firebox will be juniper chips, alder sawdust, bird cherry, birch twigs( without bark).You can use maple wood chips or oak, as well as shavings of fruit trees( pear, sea buckthorn, sweet cherry).
Smokehouse design
The center settles down at a distance from the smoking chamber. They can serve as a regular pit. Between themselves, the chamber and the hearth are connected by a special tunnel - a chimney, through which the smoke is cooled to the desired temperature before it enters the chamber with the products.
An old refrigerator, gas stove or metal barrel can be adapted as a smoking chamber. Sometimes use pots and cans of metal.
Cold smoking at home and the design of the smokehouse provides a number of nuances:
- The distance between the furnace and the smokehouse should be 2-7 meters, in case of exceeding this value, there may be problems with the draft.
- A tunnel-chimney can serve as a dug trench with a depth of 0.3 meters and a width of no more than 50 cm. The bottom and walls should be laid out with a flat brick, covered over with a sheet of metal and pressed with a heavy object( the firebox lid can deform).Instead of a brick, a chimney is quite suitable for use.
- To release the excess smoke and control the intensity of combustion, it is necessary to provide a valve in the fire cap.
- Airtight connection of the chimney with the chamber( the required diameter is 20 cm), for this you can also use clay or other improvised means.
- The preparation time for different products may vary, therefore it is not recommended to smoke them at the same time. For the same reason, it is not necessary to report the food to the camera during the smoking process.
- The size of the pieces of prepared products in one run should be approximately the same.
Do-it-yourself smoke-cured smokehouse with smoke generator
The process of cold-smoking takes several days. To keep smoke entering the smoke chamber for such a long time, a smoke generator was invented. This device also opens up great opportunities in obtaining different taste qualities of one type of product.
It is quite possible to make a cold-smoked smokehouse with your own hands with a smoke generator. You will need:
- metal pipe, of any shape with a cross section of 100-120 mm;
- pipe 2-3 m long;
- any fan;
- pipe fitting;
- connecting wires;
- thermometer.
In addition, you will need a welding machine and a hacksaw for metal. The difficulty is the need to be able to work with these tools.
As a rule, cold-smoked smokehouse, built by hand, has compact dimensions and is very mobile. If necessary, it can be removed in the barn, garage, or even in the closet. The size depends on what is used as a camera. As already mentioned, for this you can adjust any metal box of the size you need, which you can assemble yourself. Smokehouse itself, should be located above the smoke generator. In this position, even when the compressor stops, the smoke will continue to flow into the smoking chamber.
Below is a more detailed look at how to make a homemade smoke generator for a cold-smoked smokehouse.
At the first stage, it is necessary to prepare the housing for the smoke generator. To do this, a part 50-80 cm long is cut from the pipe intended for it. A cover is made and the bottom fits snugly to the body to prevent the sawdust from pouring out. Further, just above the bottom, small( up to 8 cm in diameter) side holes are drilled for igniting sawdust and oxygen access.
A smoke outlet is welded at the top of the smoke generator( 5–8 cm below the edge) - a nozzle connected to a tee, to which two pipes subsequently join. One of them is directed to the smoke chamber, the other to the compressor. The tee can be attached to the lid of the smoke generator, and not in the side wall.
To create thrust, it is easy to adapt an aquarium compressor or fans from various devices. Its main task is the constant maintenance of a small stream of air going towards the smokehouse.
The generator is installed on a metal, concrete or ceramic base to avoid a fire. When working, it is very hot, which is fraught with jumping out of the holes for burning burning sawdust and wood chips.
Cold smoked house smokehouse works as follows. Raw materials are loaded into the smoke generator - dry chips and sawdust. Remember that you can not use the products of conifers because of their tarry. Check the connection of the pipe with the compressor and the chimney with the smoke chamber, we kindle the fuel. After turning on the fan begins the process of smoking. A discharged state is created in the chimney, as a result of which the smoke is drawn from the generator to the smokehouse. Through the side openings of the smoke generator, oxygen enters the furnace, which contributes to the continuous combustion process. With the help of a thermometer equipped in a smokehouse, the smoking temperature is monitored. Degrees can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the length of the chimney.
Cold-smoked smokehouse with your own hands from the barrel
Often, an ordinary metal barrel is used to assemble the smoke chamber. The diagram below shows a cold-smoked smokehouse with your own hands from the barrel.
The work will require a metal grill or metal rods, tin sheet, bricks and other tools that almost everyone has.
A hole is dug for the firebox into which the tin sheet is laid. This is necessary so that the process of smoldering fuel is carried out evenly. The chimney is a trench, the recommended dimensions have been indicated previously. From above, it is covered with any material that is resistant to burning, for example, slate and sprinkled with soil.
It is necessary to disconnect the bottom from the metal barrel and attach the metal grid instead. As a filter of soot can serve as a normal burlap( wet), which spreads on the bottom grid. Another grate is placed in the upper part of the barrel at a distance of 20-25 cm from the edge. On it actually smoked products will be located. If desired, hooks for hanging food can be installed inside the barrel.
Wow and everything. In this uncomplicated way, you get a cold-smoked smokehouse with your own hands.
There are lots of ways to build a smokehouse with his own hands. It all depends on the availability of those or other improvised means, small skills and imagination. Experimenting with simple materials and understanding the essence of the principle, you can later weld a high-quality stainless steel chamber or lay it out of heat-resistant bricks.
Below are the cold-smoked smokehouse drawings with your own hands. 
1-smoke generator, 2-smoke channel, 3-smoking house
A few more important recommendations should be noted:
- The process of cold smoking takes a long time, so you should be patient, watch the temperature in the chamber and smoke in calm, dry weather.
- It is very important to carry out all the preparatory work in the evening, and the process of smoking should begin in the morning.
- Adding juniper or grape twigs, as well as cherry twigs to the firebox at the beginning or end of the cycle, you can achieve the extraordinary flavor of the finished dishes at the exit.
- Once again we emphasize that sawdust of coniferous trees cannot be used, this will have a bad effect on the taste of food.
- The fuel must always be dry; wet chips and branches will further tighten the cooking process.
By following these simple rules, you can become a true professional in cold-smoking and delight yourself and loved ones with exquisite delicacies of your own cooking.
Finally, we offer to consolidate the received information with a detailed and understandable video tutorial. How to create a cold-smoked smokehouse with your own hands, presented in the video:
