# Another MES Mod  - Cold Smoker Assist!!



## tallbm (Dec 12, 2017)

Well if you have ever followed my posting history then it would be of no surprise that I am about to attempt another mod for my MES smoker hahahaha.  I have 2 in testing at the moment that I will post about someday soon but this is post is about a new one about to go into testing.

This is a Cold Smoker Assist Mod!!!

*The Goal:*  Pull air through my MES smoke when cold smoking similar to how air is drafted out of the smoker when hot smoking.  

If you've ever cold smoked you know that the smoke doesn't really want to travel so well like it does when you hot smoke.  I hope that this bit of suction will help :) 


The idea would be to connect the blower fan to the top of can that has the top and bottom cut of the can.  
The combined fan/can would be placed over my MES vent.
When turned on, the fan would then pull/suck air up from the MES causing similar behavior to how air/smoke travels when doing a hot smoke!







I plan to put steel scrubbies in my mailbox mod duct joint to filter/scrub creosote from the smoke as to keep the fan from clogging on.  We'll see how this works :) 

I look to put this all into affect with an 8.5 pound Salmon Lox cold smoke this Friday night/Saturday morning (if the fan gets in that quickly) when I apply the 4 hours of smoke to the Salmon Lox.

Worse case it has no effect.  I can't possibly see how it would have negative effect as I have already cold smoked Salmon Lox once before without this mod.

I'll report back with my findings, wish me luck! :D


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## motocrash (Dec 12, 2017)

I realize that's a tiny fan,what is the CFM?


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## dr k (Dec 12, 2017)

Hard to find a 3" y connector to stick in the top vent upside down and blow air into the opposite side so smoke and forced air from the fan come out the stem of the y. Maybe put a cork in the grease trap drain hole to keep all air coming in through the mailbox mod. Mine has been plugged for a couple years. I haven't generated enough juices in the bottom drip pan to use the drain hole so I foil over the hole in the bottom drip pan and plug the drain from the outside to keep all air coming in through the 3" chip loader opening. 
-Kurt


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## tallbm (Dec 12, 2017)

motocrash said:


> I realize that's a tiny fan,what is the CFM?



10.3 CFM.

[Edit: Fixed the cubic feet number]
The MES40 is no more than 12 cubic feet using the outside dimensions (I don't have the inside dimensions).
Just know that I have a convection oven motor with a 4 3/4 inch fan blade instilled in my smoker that should be pushing well over 100 CFM.

I'm just hoping th elittle 10.3 CFM fan can pull smoke and air out so it isn't sitting in there stale and just trickling out as it sees fit lol.

Let me know if you see any major holes in this approach as I am no HVAC guy or an engineer in this kind of area :)


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## motocrash (Dec 12, 2017)

The exterior dim's add up to 11.3 CF.You're gonna be changing the air/smoke ~ every 45 seconds!


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## motocrash (Dec 12, 2017)

Without a speed controller you're gonna have to put holes in the can with a church key/drill to get the flow you want without it acting like a vacuum cleaner.A better way might be to have it blow over the vent to get the flow you want.


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## tallbm (Dec 12, 2017)

Blowing over the vent is definitely an option as well that I had not really considered much.  

With the can + fan approach I am pretty sure I won't be able to pull anything close to 10.3 CFM from the blower fan because the top vent still has all the MES vent "damper" stuff in place.  Also if I had to cut it down the suction/flow I could always play with closing off the vent some.  I don't have a control for the little blower fan.

The internal convection fan will be stirring so I don't know that it will "force" much air out of the vent but it should give the air in the smoker a good stir.

This is all great discussion and food for thought.  I'll for sure try out the options and see what does/doesn't work... if anything works at all hahaha :D

Keep the ideas/feedback coming! :)


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## motocrash (Dec 12, 2017)

Well definitely report back man.


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## jwed980 (Dec 12, 2017)

I tried nearly the same thing last January (see it pictured in my MES30 mod thread). My blower is also about 10cfm, and I think it was pulling the smoke through too quickly to allow it to cool and condense in the mailbox & duct. Added the speed controller later, but did not rerun cold smoke test with it.
Interested in seeing your results.

John


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## jted (Dec 12, 2017)

Hi, I also used a fan. Mine was a computer fan mounted in a piece of 3"aluminum stove pipe. I used a 120 to 12 volt volt rheostat to control the volume. I put mine in the chip tube. It works great. Tomorrow I will take some pictures if anyone wants to see it JTED


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## tallbm (Dec 12, 2017)

jted said:


> Hi, I also used a fan. Mine was a computer fan mounted in a piece of 3"aluminum stove pipe. I used a 120 to 12 volt volt rheostat to control the volume. I put mine in the chip tube. It works great. Tomorrow I will take some pictures if anyone wants to see it JTED



I believe I can put the blower on a controller if need be but I won't be putting it in the chip tube.  My mailbox mod will be feeding smoke into the MES through the chip tube hole.  I will put my blower fan to work over the top MES vent to pull smoke/air out :)


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## tallbm (Dec 12, 2017)

jwed980 said:


> I tried nearly the same thing last January (see it pictured in my MES30 mod thread). My blower is also about 10cfm, and I think it was pulling the smoke through too quickly to allow it to cool and condense in the mailbox & duct. Added the speed controller later, but did not rerun cold smoke test with it.
> Interested in seeing your results.
> 
> John



Oh yeah I saw that!  Your design is another option I can try.
As of this moment I was thinking I would allow the sucking portion of the fan to suck the air/smoke and then blow it out, but your design kind of makes a draft with just the blowing aspect.  I like that idea since no smoke enters the fan.

I do have a fan speed controller I can hook this up to so I will try the various approaches at full fan speed first and THEN I will look at dialing the speed down with the controller.
Also with my initial design I can still use the MES vent "damper" to reduce the amount of suction/flow no matter the speed be it full blast or dialed down :)

Finally, I plan to put steel scrubbies in my mailbox mod elbow joint to work like smoke filters.  I believe 

 johnmeyer
 does this with great success in his setup.  This should help the creosote out of the smoker :)

Any additional feedback is greatly appreciated guys, keep it coming! :)


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## SmokinAl (Dec 13, 2017)

I just use a regular fan to blow on the smoke generator. I leave the ash tray open about 1/2" & it gets the air flowing through the smoker. I'm sure this would work with the mailbox mod too.






Al


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## johnmeyer (Dec 13, 2017)

As an engineer, I see a few things I would do differently.

1. Blow, don't suck. Yeah, yeah, I know ... but anything that causes the smoke to go _through _the fan will muck it up in short order. Think of what the vent on your MES looks like. That same gunk will get onto not only the blades, but the bearings as well. (No, despite what you may think, bearings in those fans are not "sealed" in any meaningful way). So, if you are going to try to give the smoker a little assist, put the fan on the inlet, not the outlet.

2. Slow the fan speed WAY down. I have an old lamp dimmer on a fan that I use to exhaust air from the cabinet that holds my "home theater" equipment, most notably the amplifier that drives the speakers. It can go pretty slow.

Every commercial smoke operation I've seen, including the old smoke houses, don't have smoke going through like a five-alarm fire, but instead only the slightest movement. So, I think that all you want to do is ensure that you get a "draw" started. Some people simple heat the MES for about a minute, to make it 5-10 degrees warmer than ambient. That usually gets things started.

The only good thing I can see from forcing a little (and I mean _little) _more air through is that it will make sure you get plenty of air to the smoke generator. I don't know if there has been a long discussion in this forum about how smoke changes as you increase or decrease the air available for combustion, but I have seen elsewhere that incomplete combustion produces smoke that is less pleasant.

So a *little *extra air might be a good thing, but 10 CFM, which is a complete air change every minute, seems like a lot.


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## tallbm (Dec 13, 2017)

Al and John thanks for the input!

Al, I have put a fan on it in the past with my 1 cold smoke and it helps make sure the pellets get air since there is no "sucking" flow going on to help draw air through the pellets.  This worked to keep the pellets going but the smoke just kind of lingered and really did not want to move up and out of the smoker.  This left my salmon tasting a little harsh with the Alder smoke (known for being light) but it mellowed out perfectly in the fridge over 24 hrs.

John, thanks for input.  I think I will try having the blower fan just blow OVER the vent in hopes that it draws the air from the smoker up and out but I'm not sure it won't cause air to blow INTO the smoker lol.
Heating the MES a little is not an option for me.  Here in TX my cold smoking temp margins are quite low so a 5-10 temp increase might put me over a desired cold smoking temp of less than 60-65F in the smoker :(

I think jwed980's approach to build a fan driven wind tunnel tube to help draw the smoke up from the MES vent may be the best approach.  I will be able to regulate my fan speed with a dial based device so maybe just causing a fan driven slow/slight upward draft to help suck some air up and out of the MES will be the ticket.  Also I should be able to cut the MES vent damper out if I can't get the fan slow enough and I still need less draft/suction to occur :)

I just know that with my last cold smoke that the air/smoke did NOT want to really move up and out of the MES with a fan blowing on the mailbox mod to supply more air so I need the complimentary effect of sucking/drafting some air from the top to assist things.

This will be an interesting little experiment and I will be sure to report back!  :)


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## motocrash (Dec 13, 2017)

tallbm said:


> This will be an interesting little experiment and I will be sure to report back! :)


To the Laboratory!


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## tallbm (Dec 13, 2017)

motocrash said:


> To the Laboratory!



Oh yes my friend!
The Salmon comes out of the cure tonight.  It will be soaked, rinsed, and then sit in the fridge to form a pelicle for 36 hours.  I'm hoping to smoke tomorrow night but it might have to keep forming a pelicle until Sat morning when I can get to it :)


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## johnmeyer (Dec 13, 2017)

You will find all sorts of ideas at sites that discuss how to get a good draft in a fireplace chimney. One of the recommendations is to use a taller stack. Your MES doesn't have a stack, but you can easily create one by just sticking 3-4 feet of 3" conduit into the opening. That may be all you need.

The next thing is to take that stack and put a 90-degree elbow on it. Point the opening of that elbow downwind. This page gives you some idea of what is going on:

https://sustainabilityworkshop.autodesk.com/buildings/stack-ventilation-and-bernoullis-principle

I just sketched up an idea that I might pursue if I get back into using my MES/Mailbox Mod combo for cold-smoking. The idea is based on what you see in that link above. You create your own "wind" and that creates suction across the end of the stack. Let's see if I can can a photo to upload to this site ...

Nope ... upload photos is still broken. It is aggravating that this still isn't fixed. Here's a link to the pic, hosted on another site:


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## jwed980 (Dec 13, 2017)

FWIW - I bought this 3v to 12v dc motor controller from Amazon for less than 8 bucks.
Blower being used is 12V @ 0.18amps max, so it's well within the controller's current rating (2-amps IIRC).
Never re-tested cold smoke using speed controller, but I may go back and do it anyway for learning purposes.

These pics should give some idea of air flow being induced using my "McGyver" cardboard proof-of-concept mock-up with the speed controller.
Induction hole (normally goes over rear-facing smoker vent) is 4-1/8" diameter with a 3/8" wide strip of bathroom  tissue attached for visual indication.

Speed control set at minimum - blower is turning slowly but hardly any airflow is being inducted:






Speed control set slightly above minimum - more airflow is being inducted:






Speed control set at maximum - still more airflow is being inducted:






I am very pleased that this induction concept works well enough without exposing the blower to any damaging smoke or heat.

I love building "cheap-n-dirty" mock-ups with whatever is at hand for proof-of-concept testing and/or problem solving.
Fun stuff...in the name of science...or smoking...or scientific smoking...or whatever...

-John


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## tallbm (Dec 14, 2017)

Thanks for the input guys!  Great images and experiment jwed980, I like seeing the cloth draft into the box.

I don't know that I have the materials at the moment to do some of the designs you guys mention.
I have some cardboard boxes and 1 can with the top and bottom cut off.  Once I get the fan in I'll see what I can put together.

I'll try to rig up the simplest approaches to create draft and see what works :D


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## tallbm (Dec 15, 2017)

Well guys the mod(s) are being tested right now but I ran into an issue where it is harder to see the smoke than I anticipated hahaha.  I know things are working because there is no lingering smoke coming out of my mailbox mod and elbow joint connected to the MES. 
Last time I cold smoked, the smoke lingered and slowly moved from the mailbox mod into the MES and I could easily see smoke leaking out of the mailbox mod and the elbow joint.

Also I think my other convection fan mod is really contributing to sucking the smoke into the MES from the mailbox mod and AMNPS with it's stirring functionality, while the top blower fan is doing a good job of making sure there is a draft to then suck the smoke OUT of the MES.  It seems there is a combo effect going on.

I tried putting the fan so it blows over the MES vent and I think it worked some but hard to tell and see the smoke with a sideways draft.

I then quickly taped the fan up in a rig like jwed980's and it definitely is working.  It is working much better than the other approach because I can see smoke in the sky and I can actually see TBS every now and again coming from the cardboard column!
Additionally the TBS is coming out at a rate that is really no different than when I hot smoke with only 1 AMNPS row being burned (I am only burning 1 row of Alder now).

There was no need for me to reduce fan speed at all.  We were all discussing the 10.3 CFM of the fan but I think that would only take affect if the fan was actually blowing INTO the MES.  With a draft being created opposite direction of the MES internal volume I think that 10.3 CFM is not nearly possible from blowing away from the internal volume of the MES.  *Translation:* Using the blower to help draft air out of the MES by blowing up and away is NOT NEARLY as strong as the 10.3 CFM that would occur if the blower were blowing into the MES to circulate air.

Other items of note:

-Temp in the MES is holding about 10-12 degrees higher than outside temp.  It is 40-42 degrees outside and internal temp of MES is holding around 52.5 - 52.7F.  The heat from the AMNPS pellets is adding no more than 10 degrees if that is really what is happening at all.

-I used a steel scrubbie as a filter in the elbow joint of my mailbox mod.  I wanted to try and filter as much creosote as I could in case smoke was going to linger inside the MES... which dos not seem to be the case so far.

I will do a more detailed and better organized summary post in the future.  I will even post some pics of the mod and what TBS I could capture coming out of it.  As it stands right now the blower fan tube approach is working like a charm :)


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## motocrash (Dec 15, 2017)

Success! Nice man!


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## jwed980 (Dec 15, 2017)

Awesome!

Good observation. You are correct-the airflow being sucked from the MES is much less than the 10.3 cfm of your blower.

The cardboard tube vacuum experiment in the following link does a good job of describing the basics of why this works.

https://woodgears.ca/physics/venturi.html

Have fun, and thanks for sharing.

-John


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## tallbm (Dec 15, 2017)

Ok another report.

So I unpulgged the blower tube mod and everything is still working well.

Also the temp was starting to inch upwards so I filled a gallon ziplock bag full of ice and put it in the smoker to stop the increase of temp and drive it down slowly.  It is working so so far so good.

I have a feeling that the with the temp being warmer inside the MES than outside AND the fact that I left the cardboard chimney over the vent (with the blower unplugged) physics is keeping the flow going strong!   Well that and maybe my convection fan mod inside the smoker is helping too :D

In any case I still feel like the blower tube mod helped get the ball rolling and now it isn't stopping :)


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## dr k (Dec 17, 2017)

I'm going to put a bag of ice on the mailbox/pipe next cold smoke. 
-Kurt


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## tallbm (Dec 17, 2017)

dr k said:


> I'm going to put a bag of ice on the mailbox/pipe next cold smoke.
> -Kurt


I'm curious to see what that does for you.  Just keep an eye on it to make sure the bag doesn't melt and spill out :)


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## dr k (Dec 18, 2017)

tallbm said:


> I'm curious to see what that does for you.  Just keep an eye on it to make sure the bag doesn't melt and spill out :)


Mr T suggested putting ice on the mailbox/pipe.  Last summer The IR therm gun read 120*F on top of the mailbox with the Amnps going for over an hour.  Les Stroud, Survival Man boiled water in a plastic bag over a camp fire so the mailbox should be ok.  I'll put a thin dish towel on the mailbox first and wet it so plastic won't stick to the mailbox.  I got a feeling I'll be going through a lot of ice unless I can mould a bag with water in it before freezing so it stays on the mailbox.  The Pecan dust should be cooler than the pellets.
-Kurt


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## Braz (Dec 21, 2017)

Here is my approach. I pirated a cooling fan from an old PC and wired it through a 3-12 volt variable power supply. After a test I added the "legs" in order to reduce the suction effect somewhat. It works a treat for cold smoking running at around 5v.


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## tallbm (Dec 21, 2017)

braz said:


> Here is my approach. I pirated a cooling fan from an old PC and wired it through a 3-12 volt variable power supply. After a test I added the "legs" in order to reduce the suction effect somewhat. It works a treat for cold smoking running at around 5v.



That is awesome!  It is simple and it seems to work well.

My first approach was going to be like that but after the discussion on here I decided to go with a different design so my fan wouldn't get sticky and seize up at some point in the future.  If I had a pirated fan I would have gone that route but had to buy one online so figured I would try and make it last forever lol

So on scale of 1 (no real help) to 5 (extremely helpful) how would you say your cold smoker fan helped out?


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## Braz (Dec 21, 2017)

I guess on that scale I'd give it a 4, only because I haven't used it long enough to see if it will get smoke gunky and fail. (I have another old PC that has two fans in it so I'm not too concerned about a fan failure.)

Before I added the fan when I'd cold smoke the box would fill with thick smoke and just seem to sit there. I didn't like that because it seemed like the meat was just getting creosoted instead of smoked. I was always having to put heat in to get a draft going. I also had occasional problems with my AMPS going out, I suspect from lack of draft. With the fan running relatively slowly it only pulls a little draft but it seems enough to keep the AMPS going and to keep the smoke moving through the box. I take the chip loader out completely, by the way.


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## tallbm (Dec 21, 2017)

braz said:


> I guess on that scale I'd give it a 4, only because I haven't used it long enough to see if it will get smoke gunky and fail. (I have another old PC that has two fans in it so I'm not too concerned about a fan failure.)
> 
> Before I added the fan when I'd cold smoke the box would fill with thick smoke and just seem to sit there. I didn't like that because it seemed like the meat was just getting creosoted instead of smoked. I was always having to put heat in to get a draft going. I also had occasional problems with my AMPS going out, I suspect from lack of draft. With the fan running relatively slowly it only pulls a little draft but it seems enough to keep the AMPS going and to keep the smoke moving through the box. I take the chip loader out completely, by the way.



Fantastic info!


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## tallbm (Dec 21, 2017)

Ok guys I am finally getting around posting about my little makeshift device to assist with cold smoking.  See the images here!






The device is a Hunts Spaghetti sauce can with the top and bottom removed, cardboard then wrapped around the can and duct taped to make a chimney.
I then took cardboard and taped it to the blower portion of the fan to make "spout" which I then cut at an angle to go into the cardboard chimney.
I then cut a rectangle into the cardboard chimney and married up the fan and the chimney and duct taped it flush.  Now the blower blows into the chimney at an upward angle to create the flow of air that will pull the smoke/air from the MES vent when the whole contraption is put over the MES vent.
I used an old 12 volt (.850A) plug that could handle the Amperage pull of the 12V blower fan (.2A) and butt spliced the wires together then taped over the connector with blue duct tape.


The device worked greatly and I actually didn't need it for the entire smoke.

In the past the smoke lingered and didn't seem to want to come out of my MES vent so easily... very much the opposite of a hot smoke.

The first hour of the smoke the device was instrumental in keeping the smoke flowing.  Also the smoke was very thin and hardly visible.

After about 2 hours into my 4 hour cold smoke the smoke was much more visible and flowing with ease.
I got the idea to unplug the device and low and behold it kept chugging right along.  I left the device/chimney over the MES vent and I think that helped keep things going without the fan creating the blow suction.

There was no smoke lingering.  During my last cold smoke I think the lingering Alder smoke left a kind of strong smoke taste on my salmon.  I think this was because it was stale smoke with the addition of creosote on the salmon.

Additionally I put a steel scrubby into the elbow joint of my Mailbox Mod I think that also did wonders in trapping the creosote from the cold smoke.

I would say that overall everything was a huge success!

Anyhow that is my report.  If you have any questions let me know!


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## motocrash (Dec 21, 2017)

So it just needed a little push and then sustained flow.Cool!


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## tallbm (Dec 21, 2017)

motocrash said:


> So it just needed a little push and then sustained flow.Cool!



In my setup for a cold smoke, it seems so.  

My Franken-MES setup also has a convection oven fan mod installed to stir the air/smoke inside the smoker.  I think that once the draft was good and established at the stirring fan basically kept it going.

So I'm guessing that my device will prime or kick start the flow and after an hour or two it is no longer needed or at least I may be able to just unplug and let the chimney do the rest :)

So far it seems this experiment and the one braz did may eliminate that "harsh" smoke and "need to mellow" type of effect that is often had when people are cold smoking stuff like cheese and salmon lox, etc.  I have read quite a few posts where people talk about harsh smoke flavor on cheese.


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## motocrash (Dec 21, 2017)

I bet it would sustain flow faster(in less time)if the chimney were all steel cans taped together with metal duct tape.The steel would warm and maintain heat faster...


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## tallbm (Dec 21, 2017)

motocrash said:


> I bet it would sustain flow faster(in less time)if the chimney were all steel cans taped together with metal duct tape.The steel would warm and maintain heat faster...



I could see that.  I only had one can and a bunch of boxes from Christmas shopping online :)


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## motocrash (Dec 21, 2017)

Probably would get the thermal going pretty quickly 15-25 min ??


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## jwed980 (Dec 22, 2017)

There's thinking outside the box, and you actually used the box-that's brilliant!

Well done.


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## tallbm (Dec 22, 2017)

jwed980 said:


> There's thinking outside the box, and you actually used the box-that's brilliant!
> 
> Well done.


Hahaha thanks!

It's not pretty but it is effective :D


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## tallbm (Jan 28, 2018)

Well I would like to report another successful cold smoke using the cardboard based fan assist cold smoking device I whipped up about a month and a half ago.

This time around I did NOT run my convection fan inside my smoker and still had the same great success only using the cold smoker assist :)

I smoked about 3 pounds of salmon lox for my cousin and MAN did it turn out great!
I am really loving 4 hours of 100% Alder on a salmon lox cold smoke.  Alder is such a "fresh" smoke flavor to me.  It reminds me of the flavor you get when you cedar plank grill a piece of fish, but not as pronounced of a flavor.

If I ever smoked cheese I would give Alder a shot... too bad I'm quite lactose intolerant and am not motivated to go out and buy a few pounds of cheese to smoke and then eat hahaha.  Don't get me wrong, I can tolerate a good amount of cheese before I have to watch out but I'm sure that if I smoke some cheese it would taste so good I would likely eat too much and suffer horribly for it hahaha.  I think smoking some almonds or cashews would be great to do with Alder.  Maybe that will be my approach :)


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