TURNING MY WEBBER INTO A SMOKER. PART II

[Paikea]

I have finally finished turning my Genesis Webber into a part time Smoker.

It all started when my deckie fishing mate (before he jumped ship and moved down to a farm at Bega) gave me a cast iron smoke box to hold wood chips for use in my Webber.

I did not do anything with it until I found some commercial refrigerator racks left on the side of a road for a Council Clean up. They looked ideal for laying fish on in the Webber.

Using an 100mm angle grinder with a cut off disc I cut the racks to suit then bent the main part and cut another piece to be fitted to the rack using SS Jubilee clips. The pics show the end result.

The rack sits on top of the burners, I had to cut away part of the rack to allow the smoke box to also sit on top of the front burner. (The Genesis has three burners, front, middle and back) but I will only use the front one to keep the temperature down.

I then made/fitted  a smoke damper to the top L/H side of the hood which I hope will help to distribute the smoke evenly over the fish etc.

I have fired it up and am currently waiting for the smoke to start. It seems to be taking an awful long time for that to happen. Anyone have any advice on getting the shavings etc to start burning? I guess that a drop of metho might speed things up but would likely taste the end product.

I hope that the pics might be of interest to someone who has been thinking of doing the same thing

Cheers

Paikea

[proka]

Think is awesome. I’m looking for an old bbq now

[Earlybird]

Hi Mate , Don't use any thing to start the chips or dust smoldering you don't want flame ,flame no smoke
just turn up the heat a little once the smoke starts reduce the heat . I find around 87'c is as low mast chips will ignite dust is about the same I run my smoker at 93'c- 97'c for most dust/chips
then maintain a steady temp. hope this throws a bit of light on your endeavor's
cheers

[Paikea]

Thank you Earlybird, I will try that.

I also had a look at Google and found a guy using a combination of a Portagas torch followed by a hot air heater to quickly start the chips smoking, he also sprayed the chips with water after they started. It looked very effective, lots of thick smoke.

All I need to do now is catch some fish.

Cheers

Paikea

[reddory]

Bear in mind that most of us doing "smoking" at home are hot-smoking.  That is, cooking, with smoke included.  You need a heat that will cook the fish/meat/whatever properly - and that is usually more than enough to get your chips or sawdust smoking nicely. Chicken breast fillet, for example, needs to reach an INTERNAL temp of 165 deg C to be properly cooked - and if you run a very low temp, it would take so long to reach that point that the meat would be dried out horribly, I reckon! If you're not getting smoke, I'd say you're simply not running it hot enough.

On the other hand, if you have a proper cold smoker, for curing and preserving meat and fish (eg, bacon, ham, kippers, etc) then your source of heat is under the chips, but the smoke is taken to a completely separate smoking chamber, and is already cool when it arrives there - so it's not cooking the meat, but smoke-curing it.

[Paikea]

Thanks for the temp info Reddory, I was not aware  how critical the internal temp for chicken is.

I guess it is important to avoid the growth of Salmonella in the bird which I understand can be fatal. I have an temperature probe that we put inside meat when cooking it on the Barbie. The gauge sits outside the cover of the barbie. I will now use that with the smoker when I do chicken.

What about fish? Any requirements apart from checking that it looks & feels cooked?

And Proka, if you do find an old Bar-B-Q and convert it to a smoker please post some pics. If you cannot find any used commercial refrigerator trays you might check if an old shopping trolley will do the job. Alternatively check with suppliers of commercial refrigeration first as they might be the most likely source for you.

Cheers

Paikea

Cheers

Paikea

[proka]

Thanks for the temp info Reddory, I was not aware  how critical the internal temp for chicken is.

I guess it is important to avoid the growth of Salmonella in the bird which I understand can be fatal. I have an temperature probe that we put inside meat when cooking it on the Barbie. The gauge sits outside the cover of the barbie. I will now use that with the smoker when I do chicken.

What about fish? Any requirements apart from checking that it looks & feels cooked?

And Proka, if you do find an old Bar-B-Q and convert it to a smoker please post some pics. If you cannot find any used commercial refrigerator trays you might check if an old shopping trolley will do the job. Alternatively check with suppliers of commercial refrigeration first as they might be the most likely source for you.

Cheers

Paikea

Cheers

Paikea

That gives a windy day project