I thought I would send you some pictures of my barrel style oven that I built about 3 years ago.

It works great for baking roasting and I also made an adapter to cold-smoke in it. The smoke source is in the bottom and the smoke comes up into the chamber through the ash-slot.

I get stable 80 to 90 deg. F. since it’s already pretty warm here in Clearwater, FL.

Attached are some pictures of this smoking system. I don’t have pictures of the food at that point. Because usually the food is gone instantaneously in a flash, before I can take pictures, but I will make a few photos on my camera and email them you very shortly.

How this cold smoker system in my oven works?

I’ll give you a quick overview how my cold smoker works.

Cold smoking food is best done at around or up to 90 deg.F. If you make sausages, get the right recipes which includes using sodium nitrite or nitrate to prevent the development of dangerous toxins. There are great books describing in detail how to do it.

Anyway, I am taking advantage of the fact, that the bottom of the oven can be used as a separate smoke generating chamber. The smoke temp. reaches about 120 deg. F in the bottom. Then I channel the smoke up to the baking chamber, which needs to be cold at that point, where the smoke cools down to about 90 deg.

The oven bottom has a cover with a sliding door to control the fire and to contain the smoke. I start out with a regular small charcoal fire at first (without the smoke) which creates a draft that dries the meat. Then I add the wood chips to create smoke. Since the front bottom of the oven is covered, the smoke has to move up through the ash slot, where it is channeled back into the oven chamber and dispersed through the holes of the insert. The insert is made of plywood also and fits right over the ash slot.

To contain the smoke in the baking chamber, I have a second lid that covers the oven chamber. I control the exit draft by tilting the lid, held by a brick.

Using a controlled fire and wood chips requires observing the system while it is running, but it would be possible to just put an electric heater in the bottom with a pan full of wood chips on top.

The difference of cold vs. hot smoked

Cold smoked food does not cook and tastes totally different. More like jerky but better. Applications would be: making Lox, raw bacon, salami, frankfurters and other German or Polish style sausages. Enjoy.

I hope the brick oven community will get something out of this, have fun.

Reinhard,
Clearwater, Florida.
P.S. Thanks again for the info on your web site, I used it extensively during construction.