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Cold Smoking with my Beelonia F5….! Having Small issues..?

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smokingbutch

smokingbutch

Newbie
Original poster
Apr 9, 2015
7
10
Firstly I'm new to this forum , i have been posting regularly on the smoking section of the Sausage making forum but then this site and forum was highly recommended to me , so here i am!

Anyhow little over 2 years ago we brought a Beelonia F5 commercial smoker for our small family run butchery based here in the UK, we wanted to cold smoke our own cured bacon / gammons etc & we chose the beelonia F5 based on size , ease of use and also the fact it was made fully out of stainless steel meant we were covered to have it in our prep room in our butchery.

The F5 was ordered with an outside smoke box which is situated outside of our prep room with a pipe around 1.5m long running from the smoke box to the main chamber. After having a play around in the first 18months and sorting out airflow issues which we eventually sorted thanks to a Beelonia and a fellow Sausage making forum members etc we are now able to smoke products and getting fair results! 

Our only issue now is that i don't think we are producing enough smoke to fill the chamber so it takes 3-4 days to get a light covering on the bacon…?

Our smoke generator is a bigger custom built version of the A-mazing Dust tray approx 40cm x 40cm x 5cm deep as the beelonia smoke tray didn't work so good but the dust in this new custom built tray works a treat and burns for approx 12-18 hours non stop! I'm just not sure its producing enough smoke to fill the chamber which is approx 6ft high by 4ft wide by 4ft deep. 

any thoughts on this ? i will post photos of our setup once i get chance to take some
 
Hello.  Well this one is interesting because I know some of the guys are using the A-MAZE-N products in their fridge conversions.  I plan to use one on mine.  Some of the guys even have commercial size fridges converted.  I am just starting with the curing thing so I am not the best person for this issue.  Maybe my "bump" will get you better answers.  We always talk about air flow here as it is important for temp control and to insure you have no creosote build up but could it be that you have too much air flow and the smoke is exhausting too quickly??  
th_dunno-1%5B1%5D.gif
  That's one I haven't given much thought to but I guess that could be possible.  Some pictures may help.  Keep Smokin!

Danny
 
Hi Danny ,

The air flow is pretty good at the moment with the exhaust flue at 80% closed , when I open the door I expect to see alittle more smoke in the chamber then there is but it might just be me!

A few weeks ago when it was colder outside (5-10 degrees) the dust use to burn quicker at around 12hours , but now it's slightly warmer outside (10-20 degrees) & I'm using the same amount of dust, it's burning around 18hours ! My inside smoke chamber temp is always between 12-20 degrees .

I see videos on YouTube of people smoking bacon in around 8-12hour runs and the bacon is very well coloured , yet it's taking me 3-4 days
 
SB,

when  I cold smoke with my pellet tray, I light both ends of it. Otherwise, it takes a long time to get the color I want. Not sure if you are already doing that?
 
sounds as it you are cold smoking perfect..... thin, light smoke, interrupted with no smoke, over several days....

Wedliny-Domowe Cold Smoking description.....

Cold Smoking

Cold smoking at 52-71° F (12-22° C), from 1-14 days, applying thin smoke with occasional breaks in between, is one of the oldest preservation methods. We cannot produce cold smoke if the outside temperature is 90° F (32° C), unless we can cool it down, which is what some industrial smokers do. Cold smoking is a drying process whose purpose is to remove moisture thus preserving a product.

You will find that different sources provide different temperatures for cold smoking. In European countries where most of the cold smoking is done, the upper temperature is accepted as 86° F (30° C). The majority of Russian, Polish and German meat technology books call for 71° F (22° C), some books ask for 77° F (25° C). Fish starts to cook at 85° F (29.4° C) and if you want to make delicious cold smoked salmon that is smoked for a long time, obviously you can not exceed 86° F (30° C). Cold smoking assures us of total smoke penetration inside of the meat. The loss of moisture also is uniform in all areas and the total weight loss falls within 5-20% depending largely on the smoking time. Cold smoking is not a continuous process, it is stopped (no smoke) a few times to allow fresh air into the smoker.
 
CDN offroader said:
SB,

when  I cold smoke with my pellet tray, I light both ends of it. Otherwise, it takes a long time to get the color I want. Not sure if you are already doing that?
Click to expand...

I have tried that method a few times and it was ok for around 8-10h smoke sessions Thumbs Up
 
DaveOmak said:
sounds as it you are cold smoking perfect..... thin, light smoke, interrupted with no smoke, over several days....

Wedliny-Domowe Cold Smoking description.....

Cold Smoking

Cold smoking at 52-71° F (12-22° C), from 1-14 days, applying thin smoke with occasional breaks in between, is one of the oldest preservation methods. We cannot produce cold smoke if the outside temperature is 90° F (32° C), unless we can cool it down, which is what some industrial smokers do. Cold smoking is a drying process whose purpose is to remove moisture thus preserving a product.

You will find that different sources provide different temperatures for cold smoking. In European countries where most of the cold smoking is done, the upper temperature is accepted as 86° F (30° C). The majority of Russian, Polish and German meat technology books call for 71° F (22° C), some books ask for 77° F (25° C). Fish starts to cook at 85° F (29.4° C) and if you want to make delicious cold smoked salmon that is smoked for a long time, obviously you can not exceed 86° F (30° C). Cold smoking assures us of total smoke penetration inside of the meat. The loss of moisture also is uniform in all areas and the total weight loss falls within 5-20% depending largely on the smoking time. Cold smoking is not a continuous process, it is stopped (no smoke) a few times to allow fresh air into the smoker.
Click to expand...


Thank you for the reply , I have been told all of what you said above before and I totally understand that it is the right way to smoke products !
I'm just confused by looking at what others are doing and getting better results and better colour in shorter smoke times then what I'm experiencing...!
 
Smokingbutch said:
Thank you for the reply , I have been told all of what you said above before and I totally understand that it is the right way to smoke products !
I'm just confused by looking at what others are doing and getting better results and better colour in shorter smoke times then what I'm experiencing...!
Click to expand...
Well better results is a subjective matter so let's leave that aside. Color is something that is measurable and I'll comment on that. Those that are getting a deeper color with less amount of time in the smoker are likely warm smoking and not cold smoking as you are. When cold smoking, color change is MUCH slower and often doesn't get as dark as if you were warm smoking. For instance, here's a picture of some bacon my dad smoked for 6 hours at around 110-120 with apple pellets in the AMNPS. It's got a great color (I never tasted it so no comment to smoke flavor). No doubt that 6 hours in cold smoke wouldn't be anything near this color. 

IMG_0142.jpg

IMG_0142.jpg


IMG_0147.jpg

IMG_0147.jpg

 
Last edited:
rgautheir20420 said:
Well better results is a subjective matter so let's leave that aside. Color is something that is measurable and I'll comment on that. Those that are getting a deeper color with less amount of time in the smoker are likely warm smoking and not cold smoking as you are. When cold smoking, color change is MUCH slower and often doesn't get as dark as if you were warm smoking. For instance, here's a picture of some bacon my dad smoked for 6 hours at around 110-120 with apple pellets in the AMNPS. It's got a great color (I never tasted it so no comment to smoke flavor). No doubt that 6 hours in cold smoke wouldn't be anything near this color. 

IMG_0142.jpg

IMG_0142.jpg



IMG_0147.jpg

IMG_0147.jpg

Click to expand...


Now that is a great photo of some fine looking bacon , I see a lot of talk on other threads about the warm smoking and perhaps this is where I'm going wrong...? There was a chap who used to smoke my bacon for me and it was really wonderful smoked bacon that he did and one day he dropped my bacon off after smoking it and it was quite warm as it had just come out of his smoker so I assume he had warm smoked it.
I think this is something I need to investigate as this may be the way to go
 
Well as Dave has described, cold smoking provides a more thorough smoke of the hunk of meat. Are you not happy with the smoke flavor or is it just the color you'd like to work on? What's your main goal? Then we can maybe help plan out a process that'll get you there. Of course, it's gonna take some trial and error on your part to see how many hours at what temp gives you what you're looking for. I smell a bacon smoking experiment in your future.
 
rgautheir20420 said:
Well as Dave has described, cold smoking provides a more thorough smoke of the hunk of meat. Are you not happy with the smoke flavor or is it just the color you'd like to work on? What's your main goal? Then we can maybe help plan out a process that'll get you there. Of course, it's gonna take some trial and error on your part to see how many hours at what temp gives you what you're looking for. I smell a bacon smoking experiment in your future.
Click to expand...

Yes colour is something that I would like to work on , the smoke flavour is very good but just lacking alittle colour! Tho now the weather has warmed alittle here in the UK I seem to be getting better results so I assume temp is a big factor in getting a better colour
 
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