Cold smoker for the Egg

NibbleMeThis

I picked up this trick from the BBQ Brethren and tried it out on my large Egg yesterday. It's pretty cheap and easy to make.

Soldering Iron Cold Smoker
All you need is a can, a soldering iron (tip removed as shown), and a drill.

NOTE: See Smoke or Fire's comment below re: lead safety. If you don't know for a fact that your iron has never touched solder wire containing lead, don't risk it. An new iron is only about $12.



Drill a hold in the end large enough for the soldering iron to fit. Drill about a dozen smaller holes on the side that will become the "top".



Fill wood chips in around the soldering iron, then cover the open end with aluminum foil.



Clean your Egg out of all coal. You don't want the residual flavors of your last cook sneaking into your cheese. (Yeah fire bowl is cracking. Dealer ordered a new one Friday.)



Place your smoke generator on the grate and run the cord out through the bottom vent.



I plugged it in and had a fine smoke in just over 5 minutes.



Let's give it a whirl. Cheese is a good start when learning to cold smoke. I used swiss, mild cheddar, colby jack, sharp cheddar, pepper jack, muenster and edam.



First I did several blocks of cheese with hickory smoke.



The smoke stayed consistent. I left the bottom vent totally open since the air flow is really limited by the holes in the can. I let this batch run about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Because the air temp was 55f, I didn't need to include an ice bath in the Egg. The smoke generator only raised the temp about 13f degrees during that time.





The second batch I used cherry wood. This time I added some raw almonds tossed in honey, butter, sugar and salt. I cooked this one right at 1 hour.



The cheese doesn't change much in appearance, so you basically have to go by time. Once you pull them off, tightly wrap or vacuum seal them for a week or two to age and mellow out a bit. The smoke will be strong right off the smoker.

The test samples were very good but will be even better with time. I predict a nice bowl of beer cheese soup in my near future!

SmokinGuitarPlayer

Really good idea! Finally a use for all those old soldering pencils I have in the basement somewhere ... gotta make one of those ... thanks .
FB/SGP

PS... your firebox is under warranty if you are your Egg's original owner go to your dealer and get a new one!

NibbleMeThis

Yeah, I know:) I went to Hearth and Patio on Friday and they were great about it. They ordered one under the warranty for their next shipment. World class customer service!

reelgem

Chris, great post. I've seen this method with the soldering iron before but have never tried it. You have really nice detailed instructions. I've always used hickory but just wondering how the cherry worked. I REALLY like the almonds idea. I never would've thought to smoke them on the egg. Thanks!!

troutman

Great tip Chris.

Don't forget to blog about that beer cheese soup (hint, hint).

Thanks for the post, I'm going to try this out. How were the almonds, and how long did you smoke them? Oh, and did you stir them at all during the smoke?

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

might consider doing a preliminary run without any food. maybe a short higher temp burn.

most cans are lined with a very thin coating of plastic.

i don't have a dog in the fight, but from what i understand, the culprit is supposed to be BPA, whose dangerousness vs. safety is much-debated lately, by folks who know more about it than I do

NibbleMeThis

The almonds were excellent, the disappeared quickly.

I smoked them about 85 minutes but was finally running out of smoke at that point and didn't have anymore cherry, so I threw them in the oven for about 10-15 more minutes.

Next time, I plan to do them more spread out, because they did get clumpy as the extra butter/honey cooled.

BENTE

i have always done the six briquetts trick for cold smoking.. your way looks pretty easy also we actually smoked some cheese in july just to see what would happen



i did it at night but did it during the summer

SmokeOrFire

To those who want to try this, please use a new soldering iron. Most solder is leaded (until very recently). If a single speck of solder is on the barrel or handle, then it will vaporize and add the sweet taste of lead to your food (and egg). This is why soldering areas at work (if you have them) are marked "no food or drink".

With new soldering irons, great idea. I'll have to try this.

NibbleMeThis

An excellent point.

I had made sure to mention taking off the soldering iron tip due to the use of lead in soldering wire, but totally forgot to mention doing a pre-burn. Good catch! Thanks!

Besides the health effects, it just smells funny when it burns off:woohoo:

I did it the hard, slow way (50 minutes). Afterwards, I realized I should have used my MAPP gas to torch it in a minute or two.

NibbleMeThis

That's what we used last year and it worked too.

Was it hard keeping the Egg temp low enough when you did it in the summer? I've never tried it.

NibbleMeThis

I was surprised, I liked the cherry better, but we'll see after it ages a bit.

BENTE

i did it at like midnight and had hosed the egg down earlier.. the temp did get up towards the 90 degree mark but i did not loose any cheese

NibbleMeThis

Good point.

That is why I mentioned taking the tip off. While one could reason that any drips on the base would solder off during the initial burn but it's not worth gambling over a $12 part. Thanks for the input!

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

is there still lead in soldering wire?
i remember my dad hoarding a bunch of soldering wire many years ago because of some "non-lead" switch over that was looming.


best frigging paint they ever made was lead based. wears like iron