My Oak, Your Smoker, Our Food

[Bernie]

I'm doing some work in Oak and I have about two shopping bags of planner chips (not powdery dust, more like very fine chips).

If that's enough to smoke something, and you're in or near Exmouth (Devon, England), and you have a smoker (yeah, ALL that) we could use it to make something like cheese, fish or meat taste even better.

Any takers? Or any suggestions for a quick and easy smoker construction?

[DaveBr]

Hey fella

This (http://cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/elecsmoker.html) is the basic principle have a crack

Dave

[jus_young]

:shocked:

Sorry folks but the electrician is coming out on this one. The method used in the above link might be quite dangerous if certain safety precautions are not undertaken. An electrical appliance used in a confined space will generate heat that cannot be lost. The result of this is possible damage to the appliance at best or a total meltdown of the flex that is supplying the appliance causing a major hazard to your health if the fuse does not blow (which can happen under certain circumstances). The hot plate used above will obviously worsen the senario described above as the appliance is designed to create a lot of heat!

The other issue I have on this one is that you are putting an electrical appliance into a big metal container. If a fault does occur then the whole container could become live!

To minimise any possible issues please ensure that the supply cord going to the hot plate is protected by an RCD. The plug in type will be fine but if any problems do arise then the RCD will disconnect the supply before anything happens to you.

I can see the benefit of using this method as you do not have to maintain a fire but if anybody doing some smoking suddenly stops posting on this forum then I will assume you did not take this advice so take note of the above :please:

[dave budd]

the whole safety thing aside (which even being a non-leccy type, that does look a bit stupid to me!), the whole idea of smoking with electricity seems wrong! What's wrong with a hand full of small pieces of charcoal put in the bottom of a set up like that and a few extra air holes (though not many, you just want the coals ticking over)

I occasionally smoke food on my forge (aka bbq) with a steel bucket set upside down and the food hooked onto a rack near its base (ie the top), the bucket is set on my trivet about 6" above the embers and a hand full of green wood chips thrown on. easy, tastey and you won't electricute or badly burn yourself!

[DaveBr]

the link above is not meant to be followed Literally the OP asked for "any suggestions for a quick and easy smoker construction" the construction of the actual smoker is sound the only thing that i would change (being an electrician myself) is the heat source as what jus-young says is absolutely true and the heat build up could cause issues, i would use smouldering shavings personally but again up to the OP

Dave

[Humakt]

Hmmm...oak-smoked sausages...it's like manna from nirvana...