Many people like the taste of smoked meat, however, few people want to buy a similar product in a store or, moreover, from unknown vendors in various markets. Meanwhile, with a minimum of effort, you can create a device on any available piece of land, with the help of which it becomes possible to cook smoked meats - a smokehouse. This is a fairly simple design to manufacture and use, with the help of which you can forever become independent from the producers of a number of meat and fish delicacies. You can create a stationary cold-smoked smokehouse with your own hands in just a few days. And very simple options for the implementation of such devices can be designed in just a few hours.
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Why cold smoked
The reasons for choosing such a smokehouse design are not accidental. In hot-smoked smokehouses, meat and fish actually undergo heat treatment, while the temperature of the smoke acting on them is about + 100 ° C, which naturally leads to partial boiling of liquids in the meat tissues.
A typical cold smoked smokehouse made of wood
At the same time, the processing time of the products is small (so as not to cause their destruction). Meat obtained in this way, although it has a good taste and is safe from a health point of view, has a short shelf life (usually 5-7 days).
In a cold-smoked smokehouse, the product undergoes not thermal, but chemical treatment with smoke. At the same time, the temperature rarely reaches +50°C, and some types of meat products are generally recommended to be processed at +30°C.
At such temperatures, the rate of “impregnation” of meat or fish with smoke is very slow, and the process of preparing such smoked meats sometimes takes several days. At the same time, the meat is impregnated with bacteriostatic substances of smoke smoke, being actually exposed to a preservative effect. The shelf life of products obtained in this way is several weeks, or even months.
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Drawing of a homemade smokehouse
The smoking process is carried out by smoldering wood chips. The design of all nodes of such a structure in every possible way contribute to the process of smoldering and smoke emission. The composition of the smokehouse includes three components:
- furnacein which wood chips are burned
- chimney, which performs the function of delivering smoke and heated air to the place of smoking
- smoking chamber - a special space in which the smoking process is carried out directly
Smoking occurs as follows: wood chips heat up in the furnace and begin to smolder. Smoke from smoldering through the chimney enters a tightly closed smoking chamber, where it acts on the product - meat or fish.
Smokehouse in the country with a brick base
Separately, we should talk about such a smokehouse unit as a chimney. Despite its apparent simplicity, this is one of the most important nodes of the entire system. It is he who performs, in addition to the main one (delivering smoke to meat), four more important functions:
- Produces a preliminary decrease in smoke temperature to values admissible during cold smoking
- Promotes the precipitation of harmful substances (first of all, incompletely burned complex hydrocarbons), which is a guarantee of good taste and aroma of the resulting products
- Filters in the pipe condensate the most unpleasant of unburned products substances - carcinogens
- Prevents carbon monoxide from reaching food
An example of organizing a smokehouse from a barrel
To perform all the above functions, the length of the chimney must be sufficient. Depending on the performance of the smokehouse, the chimney can have a length of 3 to 10 m.
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Making a stationary smokehouse
Cold smoked smokehouse with underground chimney
Making a smokehouse begins with choosing a place. In order to ensure smoke draft, the smoking chamber must be located slightly higher than the firebox, that is, the chimney must be placed at some angle.
Often, such structures are placed directly on the ground to increase their stability. Moreover, only the smoking chamber protrudes above the ground, and the chimney and firebox are located below ground level.
This arrangement has several advantages:
- building takes up less space
- additional cooling of the smoke in the chimney
Naturally, it also has disadvantages, which consist in the fact that you have to deal with earthworks.
Above ground chimney
Based on the fact that the height of the furnace and the smoking chamber will be different, the ideal place to place the smoking installation will be:
- gentle slope
- bank of the reservoir
On the slope, at the beginning of work, you will have to dig a trench for the chimney and a pit for the location of the firebox.
If there is no desire to mess with the ground, all structural elements of the smoking installation can be placed above the ground.
Smoking chamber
Use as a smoking chamber of a wooden house
The manufacture of a smokehouse begins with a smoke chamber. Its design may vary. One of the following options can be used as a camera:
- wooden box; metal box
- MAF made of bricks
- old barrel (both metal and wooden)
- old refrigerator or oven
Depending on the amount of loaded products, the volume of the chamber can be from tens to hundreds of liters. The optimal volume is 200 liters; this is the volume that standard iron barrels have.
The smoking chamber should be tightly buried, and either gratings or suspension points are located in it to accommodate products.
Smoking chamber from a metal barrel
The internal structure of the smoking chamber must be such that smoke can freely flow to all products located inside.
At the same time, to ensure traction, the chamber should not be hermetically sealed. Usually, in its upper part, an opening is provided for a small pipe through which the remaining smoke will exit - this will ensure the necessary condition for smoke draft.
Smoking chamber from a gas cylinder with a pipe
In very simple designs, the chamber remains open, and a piece of burlap is placed on top of it.
Lattices or suspension points for placing products can be located inside at an arbitrary distance from each other. The method of their fastening can be any; the main thing is that the condition of unhindered passage of smoke throughout the volume is observed.
Using an old refrigerator as a smoking chamber has a lot of advantages. These include:
- hermetically sealed door
- the presence of shelves for products in the form of lattices
- thermal insulation properties of walls
In addition, the refrigerator is a ready-made design, and to “connect” it, you just need to make holes in the floor and roof for smoke to enter and exit.
Products in the smoking chamber from the refrigerator
The most durable and reliable smoking chambers are brick products. They can have almost any capacity and be universal - that is, they can be used for cold and hot smoking. In the latter case, the firebox can be located directly under the chamber, and the whole structure is a single whole.
Universal smoking chamber made of bricks
Chimney and furnace
If the chimney is located underground, it is convenient to make it from a piece of asbestos-cement pipe. A good option would be to use ceramic or clay pipes. But metal pipes are best used when installing chimneys located above the ground.
underground chimney
In the case of using an underground chimney, its installation is done simultaneously with the creation of the firebox. The sequence of actions during construction will be as follows:
- They dig trenches for the chimney, smoking chamber and firebox. The depth of the trenches is taken 1.5-2 shovels
- The floor of the furnace and smoking chamber is cemented
- Laying a pipe in a trench
- The walls and top of the firebox are laid out with refractory or fireclay bricks
- A furnace door is installed on the front panel of the furnace
- The chimney is buried with earth and tightly tamped
- Install a smoking chamber in any previously selected design
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- We lay out the walls of red brick
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- Inside refractory brick
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- We mount the frame for the firebox
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- Let's wall up the lid
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- Laying out the rest of the space
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- Finished furnace
The design of the cold smoked smokehouse discussed above is a "classic". It uses the natural way of burning wood chips and does not use any alternative smoke sources for smoking.
But at present, there are several varieties of smokehouses, the smoke in which is obtained in other ways. In particular, the combustion process may not be involved at all.
Such smokehouses can take up less space and be more economical. The heat source for heating wood chips (or any other method of producing smoke) is electrical energy, natural gas, or other methods.
Let's consider these constructions in more detail.
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Smokehouse with smoke generator. A hopper with wood chips and an air blower are visible
An alternative source of smoke can be a special device called a smoke generator. In it, smoke is created by heating wood chips, for example, using electricity.
The convenience of this design lies in the following factors:
- the smoke generator is more compact in comparison with the classic firebox with a chimney;
- in this case, incomplete combustion of wood chips and harmful impurities in the smoke (for example, the same carcinogens) will be much less
The disadvantage of such devices is the need for artificial traction.
Thrust in the case of using such a device is created using some kind of air blower, for example, a fan connected to an electric motor.
Do-it-yourself smoke generator
Currently, there are a large number of industrially produced smoke generators, however, such a device can be made independently. As a heat source, you can use a heating element with a thermostat placed in a container for wood chips. And the role of an air blower can be performed by any fan connected to a container of sufficient volume (for example, to a plastic bottle of 5-7 liters).
The smoldering temperature is controlled using a thermostat on the heating element, and the rate of smoke supply to the smoking chamber is determined by the fan speed. You can regulate the latter using any device (for example, a conventional variable resistance).
As a smoking chamber when using such a source of smoke, any of the designs discussed earlier can be used.
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Conclusion
Smokehouse in the country house made of bricks
Building a cold smoked smokehouse is a task that anyone can handle. Literally any material can be used as materials for such construction. The low temperature of the combustion products makes very flexible requirements for the material from which the smoking chamber is made, as well as for the method of its internal construction. Currently existing alternative methods of obtaining smoke for smoking significantly reduce the overall performance of smokehouses.
Do-it-yourself cold and hot smoked smokehouse
Cold smoked smokehouse: device, drawings for making your own hands from brick and wood | Photo & Video
