DIY smoker questions

[Lefty2506]

I'm kicking around the idea of assembling a smoker for smoking my summer sausage instead of baking in the oven and using liquid smoke. My thought is to use a terracotta pot with some charcoal and hickory, and then cut a hole in the bottom of a cheap Walmart grill and set that onto of the pot once it's going.

First question would be whether or not something like that should work. Second question would be how to control my heat to try and maintain it around 200 deg.

 

[Fast14riot]

For low temps like needed for sausage, I'd look into a steel drum type with a separate fire box. Plenty of smokers have been made from old refrigerators. But also check your local online classifieds (Facebook, offer up, etm), I see old smokers and grill for very cheap all the time. I picked up a small offset smoker from my neighbor who was rolling it out to the curb for trash. It wasn't rusted out or anything.

 

[Lefty2506]

I looked for something like that, but everything I found needed a new firebox. There are plenty of charcoal grills available on the used market, and a few are in reasonable condition, but they all need the firebox added, or the existing one replaced. I have a stick welder, and am half way decent at it but its a bit much for sheet metal, and building a fire box out of 3/16 or even 1/8" plate gets a little expensive. I'm looking for less project and more usefulness which is what landed me no this idea. The grill part would be a little small for doing summer sausage, but if it worked decent I could look for a slightly larger grill to use in the future. I already have a 17" square grill that I sit ontop of a rocket stove for cooking/grilling/playing around in warmer weather so I was going to start off using it. It would only fit 4 logs of sausage, but it would be a starting point. If it worked out, I would look for a larger grill for next year. I prefer your suggestion of using a more standard configuration (grill with firebox mounted on the side), I'm just struggling to find/think of an easy solution for the firebox part.

 

[kwarw123]

Check this out.

How to Build a Mailbox Mod for an MES Smoker (pic heavy)

I searched around high and low and couldn't find a tutorial on how to build a mailbox mod - even there there are lots of photos of everyone's mailbox mod (and you have to piece all of them together to figure out how to build one. Yeah, they're pretty simple, but I thought I'd try and put...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[Fast14riot]

Google "flower pot smoker" for some tested versions. Most are using electric, but you could always just dig a hole and make a fire pit under whatever container you want to use.

 

[dusterdave173]

You can't neat a Weber Smokey Mountain smoker for the average back yard guy--once you learn it--they can maintain temp like a Champ for 7-8 hours or longer I mean on the $$
They can be had on Facebook Market or local Trader paper etc for $100 ( new over $400 now)
Two chimneys full of charcoal and I can get 8-9 hours of cook time and never add a thing
Check out a cool guy on Youtube Fork and Embers--he has a great tutorial on what kind of smoker is best for your needs--he is a great cook and funny as can be --he explains the pros and cons of all the popular styles--all have a place but for the average guy the Weber is Easy to learn and Easy to have success with
Have fun

 

[Kittitas George]

Check out the 'Smokemeister Barbecue' sight. There are many good ideas using their products. They use wood pellets like I use in my CampChef. Easy to change to different kinds of wood. It maybe just the thing you need. If it works samples are required!
Good Luck!!!!!!

 

[kwarw123]

I'm no expert on summer sausage but I've been heavy into cold smoking bacon for 20 years. 200 sounds pretty high to me. Temperature control is crucial and too much smoke will make it inedible. I have the above type setup in my electric smoker, The electric smoker controls the temperature, mailbox controls the amount of smoke.
For bacon I cold smoke (120) with smoke for 3 hours then bump the temp to 175 until internal temp of 165. This bacon is cured with pink salt for 7-10 days prior to smoking.
Yahoo mail is down right now or I would have posted pics already.
Getting everything together and ready to smoke is a lot of work so do your homework, maybe do a test run with a small batch first. Everybody's taste is different and figuring out how long to smoke is hit or miss. My first time doing bacon had be belching smoke taste for a while LOL. Have fun with it and good luck.
My mail is up here are the pics.

 

[tommeboy]

It will work fine. Heck I used long pieces of tree bark to make a tee pee to hang some ducks to smokes them one time when I was camping for a few weeks. This was during duck season and I was eating them every day as I shot them. I had to as it was not freezing and they had to be cooked.

I would get a very nice fire going and burn it down till it was mostly coals. Then I took the large chunks of bark and set it up like a tee pee. I hung them inside and added whatever wood I found laying on the ground to add to the coals to smoke and keep the fire going but barely going. That some of the best smoked ducks and geese I have ever done

 

[Walt Krafft]

I have been researching grills and you can buy some pellet grills pretty cheap. Save the hassle of building something that may or may not work.

 

[ELR LVR]

I'm kicking around the idea of assembling a smoker for smoking my summer sausage instead of baking in the oven and using liquid smoke. My thought is to use a terracotta pot with some charcoal and hickory, and then cut a hole in the bottom of a cheap Walmart grill and set that onto of the pot once it's going.

First question would be whether or not something like that should work. Second question would be how to control my heat to try and maintain it around 200 deg.

I use cinder blocks, then re-arrange or build to suit my particular style of meat or whatever I am smoking at the time
for $2 a brick, its not that spendy
makes a freaking killer pizza oven too
in this pic I made a wood box on each side which then vents into the center
makes for more even heat and more smoke
only one side can be used if less heat and slower cooking time is wanted.
---
using a terra cotta pot may or may not work since it may give too much localized heat vs indirect
would likely work great for Salmon though

 

[kelbro]

Lots of folks use a regular charcoal grill as their firebox and an aluminum dryer vent from there to a smoker cabinet. Similar to the 'mailbox mod' above. That's how our (much larger) smokehouse operated. Fire in a pit and the smoke was ducted to the smokehouse.

 

[Lefty2506]

Thanks! Lost of good info to consider and research. My issue is space. My back porch is already cluttered, and I'm not interested in dedicating a significant amount of space to something that only gets used a few times a year. I would start off just doing one log at a time until I for it figured out. I heat with wood, and generally have several thousand pounds of hickory on hand. As much work as smoking is, I'm also don't want to mess up more than one log of summer sausage at a time. That also takes a lot of work and it ain't cheap either . Then there's cost. I also don't want to wrap $100 up in something that's going to rust out before I get a chance to use it more than half a dozen times.

 

[tommeboy]

With the cure in the meat, it is going to be pretty hard to mess it up. You don't need to smoke it very hot at all. i like around 200° max till it hits 156° internal temp. It is cooked and needs no more cooking at that temp. I do hams and bacon all the time at these temps so the sausage should be the same temps. Maybe 165° tops.

 

[Lefty2506]

With the cure in the meat, it is going to be pretty hard to mess it up. You don't need to smoke it very hot at all. i like around 200° max till it hits 156° internal temp. It is cooked and needs no more cooking at that temp. I do hams and bacon all the time at these temps so the sausage should be the same temps. Maybe 165° tops.

That's what I do in the oven. It's supposed to be at 185 until the meat hits 165 if I remember correctly, but it takes so long that the meat can get a little bitter. I found that cooking at 200 deg works a lot better for my summer sausage 3 lb logs).

 

[muleystalker]

Given your circumstances you stated I would look for a used electric smoker like a Smoking- It or Smoking- Tex, also Cook Shack, they aren't cheap new but are well built all stainless steel inside and out and are insulated chambers. They hold temp great and use very little wood. They are the best for making sausage and summer sausage and work great for brisket, ribs and pork butts along with other stuff. I have seen some great buys on used ones.

 

[smoooth]

I smoke 150+ lbs of summer sausage every winter. Built a couple of smokers. First was from an old oven, blocked it up and put a propane burner under and a pan of chips or pellets. Worked well, but I needed more capacity.

Found a commercial freezer that had a bad compressor for $50 or less. Removed the compressor, fan, and anything not needed.
Drilled a hole in the side near the bottom and put a 3/4” pipe through for air and wires for the temp controller and electric heating element - 220V.

You could just as easily put a propane burner in there, too, but temp control will be tricky.

I used to use a dryer heating element, they get hot fast! Worked great until the element cracked.
Currently using an old heavy heating element from a commercial food warmer. It’s slow to heat but gets the job done. Plan to get another dryer element eventually.

I can easily smoke 75lbs of summer sausage at one time with this setup. Would probably handle 100lbs, but 75 is enough for 1 run.

A 10” cast iron pan of pellets sits atop the element and smokes everything to delicious perfection!

Also, I have a large dial thermometer stuck through the door for easy reading.

 

[284winner]

I'm kicking around the idea of assembling a smoker for smoking my summer sausage instead of baking in the oven and using liquid smoke. My thought is to use a terracotta pot with some charcoal and hickory, and then cut a hole in the bottom of a cheap Walmart grill and set that onto of the pot once it's going.

First question would be whether or not something like that should work. Second question would be how to control my heat to try and maintain it around 200 deg.

For the price of offset smokers, your best bet is to go out and buy one. I think I paid under $150 for one and they work fantastic for this. It won't allow you to hang the sticks but you could put a rod across the main barrel and figure that part out.

 

[AZmark]

I have been smoking for about 40yrs now. I originally bought a New Braunfels offset smoker that used wood or charcoal but hard to control and keep temperature steady, I eventually converted it to propane, installed a 3 gallon water boiler with steel container with sliding lid for the wood chips/chunks and it has worked perfectly.....except on windy days. My sons bought me a Green Mtn Grill pellet smoker and its nice also.

But if your looking for something cheap, that works good, and has good temp control, rather than spend the time on trying to construct one I would just buy a Luhr Jensen Little Chief. They're cheap, simple to operate, and work well.

 

[Lefty2506]

Well I screwed up. I had decided to table this idea for a while and try to pick up an actual smoker this spring or summer. I mixed up and stuffed 15 pounds last night and forgot to add the liquid smoke. I'm going to try to play around with my rocket stove and a cheap 17" grill that I've adapted for it and see if I can smoke them for a few hours when I get home tonight. After that I can finish them off in the oven like I normally would. My plan is to put 8-10 pcs of charcoal in the rocket stove, cover the inlet, and see what temp that gets the grill up to. If the temp seems okay, I'll lay a piece of dry hickory on top of it, add the 5 tubes of sausage, and give it a whirl. I have a 2nd rocket stove that I can use to either either get more charcoal going, or (maybe a better idea) get it up and going after 20 min or so, and just move the grill over to it, bouncing back and forth as the charcoal burns down. My original plan was to try something like this on just 1 log, or maybe even on some of the leftover stuff that I scrape out of the grinder and tube when I'm done. I normally roll that stuff into a couple of small logs and just bake them at the same time. Those go in the fridge and never get packaged or frozen.

Regardless of whether or not this process works out for me, it is not my plan moving forward. The advice given is obvious and overwhelming. I like smoked meat. I should buy an actual smoker. Tonight's whole endeavor is just an effort to get the smoke flavor into my summer sausage because I screwed up and left an ingredient out. Even if it works well but I don't care for the natural smoke flavor, I LOVE smoked chicken, pork, and beef so still plan on getting a smoker in the coming months. My wife's niece's husband smoked a couple of hams for her family Christmas meal, and it was fantastic! That should help sell the idea to my finance committee....