I have been lurking for a short while and thought I would join. I have been curing meat since the early 1980's. About 25 years ago I tired of trying to smoke turkeys and sausage in a charcoal kettle barbeque. I just couldn't get the control I wanted so I built my own smoker. It gets cold here so I made sure it was well insulated. I sandwiched 1.5 inches of styrofoam between two layers of plywood and lined it with tin. I added a hotplate for heat and a castiron pan on the hotplate for smoke. I liberated an oven thermosthat from an oad electric stove, adjusted the range down to about 80 to 200 degrees, and hooked it between the power and the hotplate. Voila, a fully controlable smoker. Unfortunately, due to the good insulation I found i couldn't get adequate smoke generation when thw weather was above freezing. The hotplate didn't cycle enough to creat much smoke. Over the years, I then developed a few external smoke generators. I finally settled on a smalle external tube burning wood chips using and induced airflow from one of my old aquarium air pumps. Imagine my surprise to find the "Smoke Daddy" product. My old unit is very similar but not nearly so slick. Anyway that is about all about me. We live on a small acreage wooded with oak, maple and elm. I just run fallen branches through my chipper to use for smoke. I make smoked turkey, wild goose, venison pastrami, brisket, ham, pork chops, bacon, pork loin, cheese, summer sausage, garlic sausage, salmon, arctic char, tulibee, goldeye, gravlox and lox.
