2024 Author: Beatrice Philips | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 13:15
Many people love smoked meats because of their unique taste and the possibility of long-term storage. Gourmets often overshadow the assortment offered in retail outlets, making a choice in favor of home-smoked products. Firstly, when cooking on your own, you can set the smoking parameters to your liking. Secondly, there will always be clear confidence in the quality of the raw materials used. Thirdly, the cost of such delicacies will be much lower than the store price.
Of course, to start making smoked meats at home, you need the smokehouse itself . It can be purchased, but it is much easier to do it yourself from rather unexpected improvised means. For example, an old refrigerator can be used to make a hot or cold smoked smokehouse. Below is a detailed instruction.
What is needed for this?
Almost every inhabitant of our country has an old refrigerator on the balcony, in the garage or in the country, sent there after buying a new one. Usually it is used as a locker for unnecessary things or not at all. It is precisely such a unit with a metal body that is needed to turn it into a smokehouse. It is worth remembering that for the alteration you will need a Soviet-made refrigerator, since such units were made of metal, and modern models are made of plastic, which, when heated, will emit toxic substances - it is not recommended to smoke products in them.
In addition to it, you will also need refractory bricks and a metal sheet (cover) for the kindling chamber, as well as a metal or plastic pipe (preferably with a knee) not shorter than 4 m. old washing machine.
Before proceeding with the process of reworking equipment, you need to remove all internal and external parts from it: partitions, covers, plates, plastic and rubber parts - only the body will be used. After removing all the seals, the refrigerator will no longer tightly fix the door in the closed position, therefore it is recommended to attach a hook or latch in advance.
In the future, the smokehouse can be painted in your favorite color or decorated with decorative elements at your discretion.
Manufacturing process
First, you need to drill holes in the side walls of the case for attaching hooks, racks and trays. The number and distance between the holes will have to be determined independently, they will depend on the model of the refrigerator and the size of the grilles or shelves attached to it. You can use only grates that are made of stainless steel, otherwise, when heated, the material may oxidize and give the food to be cooked an unpleasant aftertaste.
Also, in the upper wall, you need to drill a hole for the chimney pipe . It will be used during the initial lighting of the smokehouse, after which the pipe is closed with a lid. The diameter of the chimney should not be too large so that the smoke passes in a thin stream, otherwise the cooking time for smoked meats will take twice as long. At the bottom of the refrigerator, you need to install a special tray with legs to drain the fat.
Optionally, in the center of the future smoking chamber, you can place an additional container made of stainless metal, where several holes are pre-drilled - this is a secondary smoking chamber, the task of which will be to provide additional air circulation to impart an indescribable aroma to the products.
There are two types of smokehouses: non-volatile and energy-consuming
In energy-consuming smokehouses, electricity is used during operation, for which an electric stove is installed in the lower part of the body. From above it must be covered with a sheet of steel with a thickness of at least 5 mm. Subsequently, the starting material is placed on the steel surface. If it is not possible to find a steel sheet, old pans can be adapted for this. If the refrigerator used has a sloping bottom, under which it is inconvenient to substitute the electric stove, you can simply turn it upside down.
Before plugging the stove into the socket, close the refrigerator door more tightly to avoid the risk of ignition of the starting material due to oxygen inflow.
To get a non-volatile smokehouse, a hole must be made in the lower part of the body, into which a pipe about 10 cm in diameter will enter. The pipe should be at a slight slope to create traction.
It is better to completely dig the pipe itself into the ground, it will act as a natural cooler . The other end of the chimney leads to a firebox made of an iron container. The firebox should also be located in a recess in the ground, which is lower in level than the body of the smokehouse itself. For a pit designed for a firebox, it is not necessary to prepare a foundation, it is enough just to lay out its walls with hardened bricks or a sheet of refractory metal.
Such an electrostatic smokehouse works on the principle of cold smoking . Products prepared in this way are recommended for use by doctors, since the smoking process does not release carcinogens and other harmful substances. To make a non-volatile hot-smoked smokehouse, the furnace chamber must be located directly under the bottom of the refrigerator body, but only if the bottom is made of thin metal.
For lighting in such a smokehouse, you need to use moist aromatic chips, which are placed on the bottom of the chamber. Wet starting material will not ignite from heating the chamber and will produce the required amount of smoke.
The first step in the smoking process is to light the fire in the furnace and wait for the coals to appear. As soon as they are ready, they must be covered with a metal sheet, on which sawdust of fragrant wood is then laid out. After hanging the products for smoking in the body of the smokehouse, you need to tightly close the refrigerator door and the firebox lid - this is a prerequisite for high-quality home smoking.
Recently, there have been many recommendations for improving the design of a homemade smokehouse with a pipe, since the quality of smoking in it strongly depends on the quality of the firewood used. If you use damp wood during kindling, then condensate accumulates in the smokehouse body at the exit, and an unpalatable crust on the products themselves.
As a solution, it is proposed to make a two-chamber firebox, where a fire is kindled in the first chamber, and aromatic wood chips smolder in the second. Moreover, in this case, the quality of the ignition used is absolutely unimportant: the necessary smoke is obtained directly from the smoldering chips. Do not forget that you cannot use pine needles for smoking.
Using a smokehouse in the summer is as easy as shelling pears in winter, it may be difficult to maintain the internal temperature. A non-combustible fabric will help to cope with heat loss: you can simply cover the refrigerator with it while smoking. It is best to place the smoker in a place protected from the wind. In addition, it is recommended to choose a site with a length of about three meters, which is slightly sloped (with a drop of about half a meter). This will allow the smoke to quickly rise up the chimney.
Small tips for use
If you need to smoke a small amount of food, then it is better to place them on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. In this case, a reflector (any piece of tin) is attached on top, which speeds up the cooking process, which significantly saves chips.
To give the smokehouse an aesthetic look, you can remove the back wall of the refrigerator and replace it with heat-resistant glass . Through it it will be possible to observe the process. You can also run the thermocouple wire into the rear compartment, which is covered with a shield, which will allow you to adjust the temperature while smoking.
Our step-by-step instructions, drawings and recommendations will help you make a smokehouse with a smoke generator. Such a cabinet from a chamber refrigerator looks very stylish and original.
To summarize, it is obvious that making a captile for personal use is very simple. It is not necessary to spend large sums of money on a finished device - it is enough to apply a little imagination to the old units available at hand.
Self-made products are always the tastiest. And cooking smoked delicacies is a great reason to get together and get out of town at any time of the year. An indisputable advantage is also the fact that in the process of assembling the smokehouse, it will be possible to free up space from unnecessary old technology, giving it a second chance at life.
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