Smoker Frig

[David Hall]

Growing up my dad used an old steel drum with a piece of tin roofing.  I've seen pits dug and covered with wet blankets and fern fronds.  Wooden boxes, doesn't matter as Long as you get smoke your good to go.  I'll smoke just about everything.  Fish, fowl, or game.  Sausages I love me all.  Trying to fill my fridge with smoked salmon lately but slow fishing has me lagging.  Smoked up beef ribs yesterday for son in laws birthday, mmmm gonna have to eat the leftovers for a couple days.

[Steve-O]

Thanks for the answers.

Kinda obvious you would roll it out ...but it looked tight and at home between the tubs and stuff.

Alder is my choice wood. I get the salmon smoking planks and split them into chips or bring a chunk of it home from Alaska each year from the Lodge.

Appreciate you sharing. I would have done this on the farm in NC...however this uppity urban environ in Utah would frown upon such redneckery. But I do have great neighbors.

[TomT]

I just left my ref/smoker outside---probably why I had to replace it.  For fish, I prefer mild wood such as alder, or fruit woods like apple,cherry, pear etc.  When smoking pork, beef or chicken I prefer a little stronger like some oaks.  I almost always add one chunk of Hickory or mesquite as these woods really impart a stronger flavor.  Right now I don't smoke as much fish anymore and when I do pork, etc I use a Weber WSM.  These units are easy to use and hard to beat the quality.  A friend of mine is a wheeler/dealer and a few years ago he came up with the used wood slats of oak barrels used for wine.  The barrels are made from white oak and then flavored with red wine--hard to get better than that. 
TomT

[David Hall]

Tom I used to have a source for those red wine infused oak barrels smoked my pork ribs with it for several years, then I ran out and I can't get it anymore, it was the absolute best for pork.

[TomT]

David,
Aren't you a west coast guy??  Maybe I can get enough of the used wine barrel slats for both of us to use.?? I agree it is really the best for pork.  In fact, going to smoke a pork butt tomorrow and will be using the barrel slats to bring this smoke to perfection.   
TomT

[David Hall]

I am here on the left coast!  South Bay, San Jose.  Got a big truck too.

[jigmaster501]

Make sure when hot smoking that you get the Fish internal temp to 145F and hold it there for 30 minutes and don't vacuum package any smoked fish unless you know that the WPS (water phase salt) is 3.5 or higher OR if you are going to freeze it upon proper rapid cooling.

Cold smoking is another issue where you have no kill step for surface pathogens and spoilage microorganisms are relied up to provide an indicator of potential Clostridium botulinum (botulism) toxin formation. For that you need an ambient smokehouse temp max of 90F. When using antimicrobials to control surface pathogens, spoilage microorganisms can be destroyed leaving you without a necessary consumer indicator of potential CBOT toxin formation.

Best to stick with hot smoking for safety.

Also it is ESSENTIAL that your home refrigerator maintains an ambient temperature of 38F or less.

Being that 99.999 percent of people don't have a lab at home to determine WPS or aW (water activity), I would suggest you freeze your smoked fish, eat it immediately or make sure that it is held at ambient temperatures of 38F or less and eat within several days.

Burning sawdust will make it easier to control temperatures and control the flavor profile of the smoke because of the uniformity of its burning. It is less likely to start burning instead of smoking.

[Big Tim]

Man...Cool fridge...All these years I was struggling to smoke my fish by rolling it into a  newspaper  Happy 4th.!!! I like pecan wood for smokin, but I had a neighbor that cut down 2 very large pecan trees and gave a stack of wood, besides Alder and all the usual suspects I have found that pomegranate wood works exceptionally well.

[Steve-O]

...one of my many Ray Troll tee shirts from my Alaska trips.