Oven Cold Smoker

[nick]

Hi All

I have just started making bacon for myself

My first attempt was streaky, whilst as good as some bacon you can buy, was something lacking in the flavour department

I know I needed more sweetness, so my second cure is a maple sweet cure loin of pork, I am now waiting for that to cure.

I am also thinking smoked bacon could also be the way forward

SO

Has anybody tried using their oven as a cold smoker

Either using a drum and pipe to feed smoke through the oven door

Or lighting a pile of sawdust inside the oven on the floor or in a tray

Lets have your thoughts on this please

Cheers

Nick

[nick]

Hi

If this should be in the Smoking section, please feel free to move it

Cheers

Nick

[DuncanM]

Hi Nick,

Would love to know more about your curing recipes and full technique?

I've used my oven for cold smoking a few times. I simply use a ProQ Cold Smoke generator, look it up.

I also have the cardboard box I prefer to do chilli's etc in.

[spinal]

Moved it

I'll be looking at this with interest, I've wanted a bradley cold smoker for years, so if I can avoid the (rather large) expense by re-using the oven... all the better!

[nick]

Hi all

I used Surfy's Pre-mixed General Purpose Curing Salt (For Cooked Products) at the recommended amount
Which is much less than I thought I would have use, it's only between 24 & 30 grams of the mix per kilo of meat
if my memory is correct, I also added sugar at the recommended rate, which is about half the curing mix rate.

Two pieces of belly had the cure and sugar mix, whilst the other two pieces had black pepper added.

I placed two pieces of each in separate ziplock plastic bags, these in turn were placed into
two more plastic bags (belt & braces), And kept in the fridge, I then turned and massaged them every day
for five days.

Hey presto....... Bacon

It has become better with hanging in the fridge for two days to dry out

I tried the black pepper version tonight on butty's for tea, it tasted much nicer, and it was much
easier to cut, being firmer from drying out

You could also taste more salt in the bacon, as opposed to when it had just finished curing

Oh by the way, I bought a second hand fridge off eBay, as I did not fancy raw bacon hanging
With my other food

Cheers for now

Nick

[nick]

Hi DuncanM

I've just looked at the proQ cold smoke generator, and all it seems to do is give a long trail of shavings for
the smouldering embers to work their way along, good idea really.

I am going to try something along those lines maybe a spiral or a snake or a long channel section that you
just slide into your oven, watch this space

I am just getting a bag of maple shavings/dust dropped off tonight, worth the cost of the phone call, he was just going to
get rid of them today, phew!..... that was close

Cheers all

Nick

[nick]

Hi again DuncanM

Have you tried using your own shavings in the proQ smoke generator

Cheers

Nick

[DuncanM]

Nope, not yet. Only because at the time I bought it I also got huge bags of sawdust with it (lots of different varieties) as a birthday present. And on top of that I don't own a chipper/shredder. I don't want to use the stuff from my chainsaw because of the oil.

I do now have a circular saw which will be great for producing centimetre sized chunks, but I'll use them in my metal box smoker I have (a metal box with small holes perforated into it - about 30cm x 5cm x 10cm.

[salilah]

I've got the ProQ Cold Smoker - yes a bit pricey but quite a nice neat container. Used it once in the WFO last year which worked fine once I relit it (went out twice!) - the chilli peppers didn't really work, but the tinfoil tray of salt smoked beautifully and the tinfoil tray of cashews was great!!
Looked at the container they recommend for using for smoking, but it appears to be a cardboard box, which is crazy for £20+! I hope to follow an idea I saw on the web to use 2 wooden wine boxes glued together and then put in some shelves.

In the meantime we also purchased a hot smoker
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0024V9P68/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
which is great! Whole sea bream smoked - yummy...

[nick]

Hi Again All

Well I tried making my own smoke with varying degrees of success

I tried two types of channel, neither worked, I also tried a pile of shavings on the floor, the smoke stopped fairly quickly, all these were lit with a blowlamp

Then I tried a cutlery cullender, which I lit at the bottom with a blowlamp, this went to a smoulder after I stopped applying the flame, so I put the door on and left it, I knew I had some degree of success, when after ten minutes smoke was creeping from around the door, I left it for about an hour or more, when I opened the door it was a pea souper inside, you could have cut the smoke with a knife.

So once the smoke had cleared, I refilled the shavings, hung a piece of bacon from my quickly made frame, and re-lit the container, then left it over night

This morning when I opened the door of the oven all the smoke had gone, but this is what I found

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[nick]

And here it is, hand sliced

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[nick]

And some of it cooked, shrunk a bit, but nothing left in the frying pan, other than fat, no white muck

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[nick]

Oh by the way, it tasted very smokey, maybe a little less smoke, continually, over the same length of time

But it's great flavour, just more experimenting is required, yum yum

Here are a couple of pics of it smoking

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[nick]

And here is a fog

OH, IF YOU OPEN THE OVEN DOOR WHILST THE SMOKE IS FORCING ITS WAY OUT.......THE SHAVINGS BURST INTO FLAME

Trying some salmon soon, Will keep you posted

Any ideas are welcomed, I like the proQ idea, but it might be a little small for my oven

Bye for now

Nick

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[rivergirl]

This is my smoking set up,
The barrel is my hot smoker and I have a pipe running into an old cupboard I picked up for my cold smoking.
I smoke most things including our home made salt, butter and bacon.
The only thing that I did not like was smoked eggs. The smoked cheese makes a fantastic addition to a risotto. But don't do what I did the first time and made the risotto with smoked rice,salt,bacon ,garlic and mushrooms !! Phew!! Smoke overload!
What spices do you use in your brine mix? I also sometimes add orange peel.