Best basic electric smoker for DIY PID install

[kilohertz]

After playing with this all afternoon, I can now see I need to seal the door properly with a gasket and probably seal around the element entry port as that is a big air leak. I’ve plugged the drain hole at the bottom and also the little original exit port at the back near the top, which I’m using for my probe wire entry, but I have it stuffed with foil right now. I know I’m about 15 years behind the original mailbox mod but I really love playing with this stuff and it’s a great learning experience. I know this little smoker is going to be perfect for doing snack sticks, and other sausages and in the winter time, cheese, etc. I still might pull it all apart and insulate it.

Cheers

 

[kilohertz]

OK, sorry for another update, but hey, I am learning and maybe somebody else can learn from this too. I taped up the three input holes on the toolbox to shut off the air supply to help heat up the smoker to 350 as there was just too much airflow, and now the stifled pellet dust in the smoke tube is making beautiful, sweet, smelling smoke , and it’s blue coming out of the stack, too weird maybe it was getting too much oxygen and the pellets were getting ahead of themselves and not getting enough time to smoulder correctly. So much to learn, and with only 25 years or so left to live. I sure hope I can learn it all in that time. Ha ha.

Cheers

 

[kilohertz]

OK last post for the evening, this is excruciatingly painful waiting for the smoker to get up to 350, I think it’s been an hour and it’s only at 296, definitely insulation required and I’m wondering if running the element at 240 would be a detriment do it, It’s easy enough for me to plumb in 240 on the deck that certainly would improve the PID tuning and the response time. Something for me to research.

Of course I’m not always going to be doing chicken wings on it or things that require crispy skin, for its intended purpose it’s probably OK on 120 V.

Night night.

 

[kilohertz]

OK I have been reading and studying old threads and remembering some of the things you guys have told me already, so this afternoon‘s experiment, I have ground up a bunch of pellets in my old blender. I have stuffed them into the smoke tube about half full put a few pellets in at the top to start everything, I have put the whole assembly in the mailbox, toolbox sorry and have elevated one end although I don’t have U bolts I used some all around, we’ll see if I can get some TBS tonight. I have a nice chicken breast in there temperature in the smoker is 99 and that’s just sitting in the sun and we have a good draft going through the whole assembly .

More later and hopefully some TBS.

 

[kilohertz]

45 minutes into the smoke, and we have TGS, still waiting for it to turn to B. Very whispy thin grey smoke, smells way batter than the pellet tray with pellets yesterday, temp holding at 100*, ambient is 85. Fingers crossed it goes blue, could be the type of pellets I used for the dust?? I’m not opening the door or the toolbox. I’m just going to let it smoke and see how long half a tube gets me.

Cheers

 

[tallbm]

Sounds like lots of interesting experimenting. Looking forward to how it evolves :D

 

[kilohertz]

My neighbor came over for a beers so I didn't actually get to cook the chicken breast, but it got 5 hours of smoke. I was amazed that only half the smoke tube went almost 6 hours, smoke never went blue but smelled good the whole time. Part way thru the engineer in me said it needs more air so I drilled 2 more 3/4" holes on the intake end, now a total of 5 for an area of 2.2 sq", exhaust is still almost 5 sq". The velocity of smoke improved out of the stack but it didn't change the burn characteristics.

I'm going to try to find some pure 100% flavour pellets, not blended as that is the last remaining variable, other than my toolbox is a little shorter than a mailbox.

For me this is all fun and a great learning experience...the adventure continues.

Cheers

PS Smoke stack is my extended 1.5' cardboard tube to improve draft

 

[tallbm]

My neighbor came over for a beers so I didn't actually get to cook the chicken breast, but it got 5 hours of smoke. I was amazed that only half the smoke tube went almost 6 hours, smoke never went blue but smelled good the whole time. Part way thru the engineer in me said it needs more air so I drilled 2 more 3/4" holes on the intake end, now a total of 5 for an area of 2.2 sq", exhaust is still almost 5 sq". The velocity of smoke improved out of the stack but it didn't change the burn characteristics.

I'm going to try to find some pure 100% flavour pellets, not blended as that is the last remaining variable, other than my toolbox is a little shorter than a mailbox.

For me this is all fun and a great learning experience...the adventure continues.

Cheers

PS Smoke stack is my extended 1.5' cardboard tube to improve draft

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Sounds like some fun findings!

Also when you tried the AMNPS tray did you do the thing by putting "legs" on it to elevate it. People use some machine screws as leg to left it so air gets under the pellet tray.

Finally, for 100% wood on the label pellets your best bet is Lumberjack. They will tell you its a blend or its 100% on the bag itself.
Cooking Pellets/Perfect Pellet does 100% Hickory and I think Cherry. Don't fool with 100% cherry just yet, it hates to stay so best to experiment with a better wood before you go to messing with 100% cherry... which I think some guys recommend turning into dust of burning for 100%.

I hope this info helps :)

 

[kilohertz]

Thanks tallbm

Well, there is still some beer left so I am going to try the tray tonight with the same ground up pellet mix so I am comparing apples to apples. I have only tried the tube with ground up pellets. The tray with full pellets is just too much smoke. I can't get LJ here in Canada, at least not in my part, I haven't fully researched but will when I get a moment, there must be other 100% brands available around here.

Yes, I had the tray elevated by putting it on top of another tray, I could still do the bolt mod but I use it elsewhere and would prefer to keep it stock.

Thanks again, back to work for the afternoon then beer O'clock in 3 hours.

Cheers

 

[tallbm]

Thanks tallbm

Well, there is still some beer left so I am going to try the tray tonight with the same ground up pellet mix so I am comparing apples to apples. I have only tried the tube with ground up pellets. The tray with full pellets is just too much smoke. I can't get LJ here in Canada, at least not in my part, I haven't fully researched but will when I get a moment, there must be other 100% brands available around here.

Yes, I had the tray elevated by putting it on top of another tray, I could still do the bolt mod but I use it elsewhere and would prefer to keep it stock.

Thanks again, back to work for the afternoon then beer O'clock in 3 hours.

Cheers

People report the dust burning lighter and staying lit more easily in the tray.
Maybe if I remember I'll try to make some dust out of the 37 pounds of 100% Lumberjack cherry I have hahaha. It's definitely the time of year in TX to let it dry out on the porch after wetting it all :D

 

[kilohertz]

A different experiment tonight it’s still in the tray but I forgot that I had bought two large commercial bags of smoking shavings probably 18 years ago now and they’ve been in my leanto since and have not used them ever. The bags are broken and the shavings are everywhere, but I managed to get a good bucket full of them, and they ignited very nicely and burned very evenly, still no TBS, but a completely different smell from the pellets. The first try, I lit some pellets and put the shavings on top and that worked well and then, when that ran out, I just put shavings in and hit them with the torch, and they ignited immediately, and just took off from there very nicely. They were made locally for a local sausage manufacturing company, and I just stumbled upon them by accident when I was looking for a new house, in the back he had a shop manufacturing these shavings. I have no idea what’s in them. He just told me it’s the local blend of hardwood for the sausage company.

Smoking another chicken breast for a couple hours tonight and I’ll let it sit in the fridge overnight and cook it tomorrow. Tonight I’m cooking last night’s smoked breast.

I can hardly wait for the first day of TBS from my MES.

Cheers

 

[tallbm]

A different experiment tonight it’s still in the tray but I forgot that I had bought two large commercial bags of smoking shavings probably 18 years ago now and they’ve been in my leanto since and have not used them ever. The bags are broken and the shavings are everywhere, but I managed to get a good bucket full of them, and they ignited very nicely and burned very evenly, still no TBS, but a completely different smell from the pellets. The first try, I let some pellets and put the shavings on top and that worked well and then, when that ran out, I just put shavings in and hit them with the torch, and they ignited immediately, and just took off from there very nicely. They were made locally for a local SAUSAGE manufacturing company, and I just stumbled upon them by accident when I was looking for a new house in the back he had to shop manufacturing these shavings. I have no idea what’s in them. He just told me it’s the local blend of hardwood for the SAUSAGE company.

Smoking another chicken breast for a couple hours tonight and I’ll let it sit in the fridge overnight and cook it tomorrow. Tonight I’m cooking last night’s smoked breast.

I can hardly wait for the first day of TBS from my MES.

Cheers

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View attachment 669882

Nice score on the shavings! Also Heads up on cold smoking.
If you don't have a good draft going you may get stale smoke and you will definitely know by the strong bad taste of stale smoke.

If your cold smoked that chicken yesterday and have some bad flavors let us know. There is a little cold smoker contraption you can make to cause draft using a computer blower fan and a cardboard tube over the vent. We can discuss it more should you need it or want it for cold smoking :D

 

[kilohertz]

Thanks, yes, I fired up the heating element once or twice to keep the smoke moving fairly quickly, certainly not as fast as if I was charcoal or offset stick burning. But for a true cold smoke yes that fan idea sounds good. I’ll know shortly, maybe, there’s still beer in the fridge.

Cheers

Being an electronics guy I have a ton of fans around here, so implementing something should be easy, and thinking about it if I put a small fan on the exhaust vent, pulling air in through the whole system, I might have to block off a few intake holes and maybe that fast moving air across the dust is what will get me TBS. Sort of a similar effect to my pellet smoker with the fan blowing on the pellets .

PPS i’m also going to see my friend who owns a sausage making place in town and talk him out of a bucket of his shavings to try in my tray and tube. If they work very well, then I’ll ask him if I can buy a bag from him.

 

[tallbm]

Thanks, yes, I fired up the heating element once or twice to keep the smoke moving fairly quickly, certainly not as fast as if I was charcoal or offset stick burning. But for a true cold smoke yes that fan idea sounds good. I’ll know shortly, maybe, there’s still beer in the fridge.

Cheers

Being an electronics guy I have a ton of fans around here, so implementing something should be easy, and thinking about it if I put a small fan on the exhaust vent, pulling air in through the whole system, I might have to block off a few intake holes and maybe that fast moving air across the dust is what will get me TBS. Sort of a similar effect to my pellet smoker with the fan blowing on the pellets .

PPS i’m also going to see my friend who owns a sausage making place in town and talk him out of a bucket of his shavings to try in my tray and tube. If they work very well, then I’ll ask him if I can buy a bag from him.

Nice!

The design I use is a blower fan blowing UPWARDS through a cardboard tube and the tube over the vent. This causes upward draft without gunking up the fan.

Also not sure if you will ever get true TBS or nearly invisible smoke, but light and thin is great as well.

 

[kilohertz]

Final post for the evening...cooked last nights smoke chicken breast, in my usual fry pan recipe cooked in butter and my homemade bacon fat, with chunks of garlic, onion and celery, with some of my home made smoked chipotle powder, ancho powder and smoked habanero powder...after I stopped perspiring, I was able to taste an awfully nice smoke flavour, a little too strong, but not bitter or bad, worked great with the cajun seasoning I put on before smoking.

Tomorrows cook will be with today's smoke, same pan recipe...Mmmm good. If I get some shavings from my friend this weekend I will try those as well.

Cheers

 

[kilohertz]

Since this thread has meandered off to mostly talking smoke, I started another thread about elusive TBS so it's easier to find.

cheers

That elusive TBS