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Oven with adapter to cold-smoke in it

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.

Wood oven with meat cold smoker.

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.

Oven with cold smoker system. Cold smoker system closing wooden door. Closed oven cold smoker door. Thermometer used in cold smoker.

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.

Smoking meat in brick oven. Wood meat smoker in brick oven.

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.

Smoking meats and cooking in outdoors brick oven. Smoker with brick pizza oven.

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.

Respond to the Oven with adapter to cold-smoke in it article:

9 Comments

  1. Smoking meats is my preferred method in practicing my culinary at home. Will post here photos of how I do slow roast/with-smoking towards the end of a roasting. Mike

    By Mike on smoking meat

  2. Fantastic website! We live in Northland, New Zealand, grow most of our own food (on almost 2 hectares) and want to build a pizza oven for cooking and drying foods but also wondered about incorporating a smoker in one of these brick ovens. We are very happy to start building our oven and also we wanted to come across with any experiences others may have with using their oven for smoking foods and this is one interesting idea.

    By Juliet

  3. Reinhard,

    bist Du Deutscher???

    By Thomas Loeffler

  4. Can you explain the partnership between the smoke generation chamber (location) and the direction the smoke travels. Is it hard to keep the temperature consistent?
    Thanks

    By John P. Kirk

  5. Reinhard,
    we are interested in building the same type of oven/smoker as this. my husband is very handy when it comes to things like this, but it helps to be able to see something in person and talk to someone that has done it. we live in Sarasota. would you consider letting us come look at your oven in person?
    thank you and great job!
    ~kelly

    By kelly

  6. Reinhard I would love to talk to you if possible I grew up in Clearwater, could you drop me a email so we might communicate on the oven please.
    many thanks
    Miles Moore

    By miles Moore

  7. I love the idea of adding a cold smoke chamber instead of a new separate smoker unit. I’ve yet to get plans CD for the outdoor oven as we are just getting ready to purchase a house with a yard to build the oven in.
    I’ve looked into building a separate unit but, this makes sense. Looking at your picture it’s hard to tell what size smoker and how many air holes for delivering the smoke you have drilled. Also, did you attach the rack system for the product to the plywood?
    Please let me know.

    Thanks!

    By Jacob K

  8. Hi Reinhard, say, please note that you need to edit: change wood to be would in the sentence ‘Applications wood be.’

    By Ruby

  9. Hi Reinhard,

    Could you give me more information on how to build the chamber and bring the smoke in?

    Dirk Kuerschner
    Alberta, Canada

    By Dirk Kuerschner

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