- Jun 23, 2010
- 11
- 10
Hello,
I've been lurking on the forums for a few days and finally decided to join the site today. I'm really impressed with the collective knowledge of this community and hope I can give some back at some point.
A little background of my smoking experience. I grew up watching and helping my dad use his offset smoker down in Texas, so I'm familiar enough with the basics. For the past several years, I've been living in apartment buildings and didn't have the space for my own smoker. Just this spring a buddy of mine, got a place with enough room for some outdoor activities and bought himself a WSM. In the process of showing him how to use it on a few separate occasions with salmon, chicken, beef ribs, and even oysters, I got sucked back into the hobby and am dying to have my own. Luckily, I'm moving this weekend into a new place that has space for me to put a smoker!
My plan is to do a custom build of a variant on the UDS and have already started ordering parts. I'll save the details for another post. My question here is about using these aquarium style ultrasonic foggers for introducing moisture into a smoker like these: http://www.bigalsonline.com/edealin...medium=Comparison+Shopping&CAWELAID=504572055
I used to have one for it's visual effect which is pretty cool, and it seems like a novel way to keep the meat moist during smoking instead of the typical water pan, mop, or mister. Check out the video of a 10 unit assembly to see how it works:
Has anyone ever tried anything like this? Looking around on the forums, I can see that someone used something like this in a sausage fermenter to control humidity, but no one mentions using one directly with a smoker.
From what I can gather about the specs, it's max temperature rating is 35 degrees C, so it wouldn't be able to be in the chamber with the meat during a medium or hot smoke. It would have to be in some kind of offset box with a connecting tube, and it would possibly need some kind of fan or pump to push the moisture through.
Compared to a water pan, this obviously wouldn't have the same temperature moderating effects. I think it does have one big advantage though in the ability to deliver more than just water vapour to the surface of the meat. Since it is creating little tiny droplets of liquid, these droplets can carry other things besides just water such as sugars, salts, acids, and other flavors that would just sit in a water pan while the water boiled off.
Compared to a mop or mister, this has the advantage of not having to open the lid every so often to moisten the meat thus maintaining temperatures better. (Though let's be honest, we're still gonna lift up the lid to look.) I doubt this would work with a thick bbq sauce however. It would have to be a fairly thin solution
Anyways, let me know what you all think. Am I completely out of my mind or is it worth looking into this for my build? Thanks for your help.
Cheers,
Tim
I've been lurking on the forums for a few days and finally decided to join the site today. I'm really impressed with the collective knowledge of this community and hope I can give some back at some point.
A little background of my smoking experience. I grew up watching and helping my dad use his offset smoker down in Texas, so I'm familiar enough with the basics. For the past several years, I've been living in apartment buildings and didn't have the space for my own smoker. Just this spring a buddy of mine, got a place with enough room for some outdoor activities and bought himself a WSM. In the process of showing him how to use it on a few separate occasions with salmon, chicken, beef ribs, and even oysters, I got sucked back into the hobby and am dying to have my own. Luckily, I'm moving this weekend into a new place that has space for me to put a smoker!
My plan is to do a custom build of a variant on the UDS and have already started ordering parts. I'll save the details for another post. My question here is about using these aquarium style ultrasonic foggers for introducing moisture into a smoker like these: http://www.bigalsonline.com/edealin...medium=Comparison+Shopping&CAWELAID=504572055
I used to have one for it's visual effect which is pretty cool, and it seems like a novel way to keep the meat moist during smoking instead of the typical water pan, mop, or mister. Check out the video of a 10 unit assembly to see how it works:
Has anyone ever tried anything like this? Looking around on the forums, I can see that someone used something like this in a sausage fermenter to control humidity, but no one mentions using one directly with a smoker.
From what I can gather about the specs, it's max temperature rating is 35 degrees C, so it wouldn't be able to be in the chamber with the meat during a medium or hot smoke. It would have to be in some kind of offset box with a connecting tube, and it would possibly need some kind of fan or pump to push the moisture through.
Compared to a water pan, this obviously wouldn't have the same temperature moderating effects. I think it does have one big advantage though in the ability to deliver more than just water vapour to the surface of the meat. Since it is creating little tiny droplets of liquid, these droplets can carry other things besides just water such as sugars, salts, acids, and other flavors that would just sit in a water pan while the water boiled off.
Compared to a mop or mister, this has the advantage of not having to open the lid every so often to moisten the meat thus maintaining temperatures better. (Though let's be honest, we're still gonna lift up the lid to look.) I doubt this would work with a thick bbq sauce however. It would have to be a fairly thin solution
Anyways, let me know what you all think. Am I completely out of my mind or is it worth looking into this for my build? Thanks for your help.
Cheers,
Tim