cold-smoking

Electric Don

I've been egging for several years, and I'm finally working up the nerve to do cold smoking - first some cheese, then salmon and trout.  I have a Medium and an XL, and plan to have the fire in the Medium, ducting the smoke to the XL, where the goodies will be.  I've been all over the forum for some succinct instructions on brining, and hopefully cooking times.  I know I want to keep the temperature below 100 degrees, and I'm hoping that will work with my arrangement on a cold day (40's in Northern Virginia).  I am aware that opinions vary as to hot smoking vs. cold smoking, but I'm determined to try this. 

Any help, comments, etc., will be very much appreciated. 

Electric Don

U_tarded

I am part of this bacon craze going I around here. I am halfway through the second 10 lb batch of the cure and I want to cold smoke at least half of it. Check out this thread a lot of good infomation on there.

http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1146173/cold-smoke-vs-hot-smoked-belly#latest

Bugster

My son and i did some Salmon we caught in southern Colorado.  I split the Salmon from the top, removing the backbone and leaving the two fillets attached by the belly with the skin on.  We brined 24 hrs in water to cover with enough kosher salt to float an egg, 1 1/3 cup of regular sugar, and 1/4 cup of molasses. (next time I will try adding dill weed to the brine).  We used a standard size vegetable can with air holes in the bottom and open top and placed it in the bottom of a large Egg. We put one lit medium sized lump coal in the bottom of the can and covered with wet cherry wood.  We let this smoke for 2 hrs and never got above 65 degrees. It was very good on Triskets with cream cheese and a dusting of dill weed.  I saw where one of the Alaskan fish company's use Maple, Cherry, and Apple at different intervals for 24 hrs and never above 50 degrees and I may try that also. There are many other ways around the internet about which spices or sugars to add to the brine and how long to smoke and with which woods. It would be fun the try some of them, but this one tasted fine and I will do it again. The time smoked really depends on your preference for how much smoke flavor you want. I think a real long smoke would dry out too much. I want my Lox to be moist.

nolaegghead

I have almost 100% humidity when I cold smoke.  I get condensation in the smoker.  I run the smoke from my egg to a smoking box.  The dryer vent bleeds off most of the heat and I have the smoker box refrigerated.  I don't need to run the refrigeration if I wait for the ambient temp to drop below 50. 

A little smoke for a long time is much better than a lot of smoke for a little time.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I use the AMAZE-N--SMOKER and have had awesome results. Definitely better in cooler weather. It only raised my temp 5-6 degrees in 40 degree weather. There is no reasonable debate on cold vs. hot smoking. You cannot hot smoke things that are meant to be cold smoked. I did bacon both ways and while both were tasty, only one of them was real bacon to me (cold). My AMS smoked 14hrs all through the night. Very pleased. I used Traeger pellets I bought locally