Smoking in a Pompeii chimney?

[Paul]

Hi,
I will be constructing a Pompeii oven over the coming months and was wondering if it was possible to build a "smoke chamber"on top of the oven transition before installing the chimney above.

The idea would be to build a brick chamber containing one or two old cooker racks with an access "door" at the front of the oven. This would allow me to sit food in the smoke rising from the oven. I realise that this would give me little control over temperature but I believe that many years ago it was quite common for people living in the country to smoke hams etc in their chimneys.

Is this feasible or a pipe dream?

[turkey]

I think it sounds a complicated build and will a door in the chimney might reduce its draw and in usual operation I would expect to be at 500 plus degrees so possibly too hot to smoke. Unless you mean smoke when not using the oven for other food and just a small fire going?

I have seen a pre build oven with a hook or bar in the main dome to hang items for smoking. Having a choke on the chimney might well help for this.

if you can plug the door and chimney you could easily cold smoke, possibly hot smoke in the main oven somehow also?

very interested in other people's ideas about this as a smoking oven in the garden was the idea that led me to wood fired ovens and then to pizza ovens.

[Calaf]

I was thinking of adding an iron rod accross the middle of the upper flue with an access door. Just a small spot to hang some mackeral.

[minesamojito]

No reason why not, though you'd need to do it at lower temperatures, the compartment may affect the draw, why not just set up the oven for smoking, light some charcoal in a chimney and when well lit, place at the back of the oven with some smoking wood chunk eg. oak, then your food in the front of the oven, and use the doors to adjust the amount of air getting in and the temp, aim for 200-250degF, and you'll be smoking away lovely!
Cheers
Marcus

[tonyb]

As others have said, the flue temperature during firing is way too high for smoking.

I think the best bet for smoking is with a small fire to get the right temp and then either put some smoking wood on that fire or have a separate charcoal smoking fire and partially closed, not fully closed door to retain the smoke.

[Paul]

Thanks to you all for your feedback. I guess that the over-riding factor is the temperature of the gases is too high so I will stick with the Weber for now.