Post Pics of your Smokers!!

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ssorllih
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Post by ssorllih » Sun Jan 01, 2012 01:42

Nepas , you are really serious about this I think. No longer just a casual hobby. Do you have the cold storage space to support all of this? I am limited to about two shoulder butts at a time. I have two butts curing now and two picnics waiting to be cut and that is all the cold storage space I can give this business.
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Post by Chuckwagon » Sun Jan 01, 2012 04:49

Yikes! That's quite a setup nepas.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Post by nepas » Sun Jan 01, 2012 05:49

ssorllih wrote:Nepas , you are really serious about this I think. No longer just a casual hobby. Do you have the cold storage space to support all of this? I am limited to about two shoulder butts at a time. I have two butts curing now and two picnics waiting to be cut and that is all the cold storage space I can give this business.
I have a couple freezers an 3 fridge.
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Post by story28 » Fri Jan 06, 2012 22:27

So we just fired this beast up for the first time. I spent a few days working with the microprocessor. Whew.

This is a new approach for me. The machine does ONLY what you tell it. Nothing more and nothing less. That is like giving a young cook a recipe and saying "Follow this and something goes wrong, keep following my directions." The machine has no intuition so you have to compute that yourself.

You have to input every condition at every stage, which I have never been able to do before. The biggest challenge is determining the wet bulb temperature/relative humidity for each specific phase of a given recipe.

I have about 130 recipes and about 70 need to be programmed into that machine. I sure have my work cut out for me![URL=http://Image Uploaded with ImageShack.us][URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/71 ... ook3e.jpg/]
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Post by Chuckwagon » Sat Jan 07, 2012 06:30

Say there son,
I know the Koch rep is there with you to fire up "Big Bertha", but I just HAVE to know... is it a dry run or do you want to throw some meat in that great big thing? I could cut a few cow critters from the herd and drive 'em straight into Big Bertha! :lol:
Good luck pal.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Post by crustyo44 » Sat Jan 07, 2012 07:32

Story28,
Your smoker looks great and you will produce some wonderful goodies.
I am working on a proofer converted to a smoker about the same size as yours but I hate to go to university to be able to run all those controls.
Even my mobile phone has me baffled sometimes and I won't even mention my computer.
Regards,
Jan.
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Post by story28 » Sat Jan 07, 2012 15:55

crustyo44 wrote:Story28,
Your smoker looks great and you will produce some wonderful goodies.
I am working on a proofer converted to a smoker about the same size as yours but I hate to go to university to be able to run all those controls.
Even my mobile phone has me baffled sometimes and I won't even mention my computer.
Regards,
Jan.
Thanks. I will have get an updated photo or maybe even a video of how it all works. This photo was taken long before all the water, electric, and coolant lines were installed.

I think I will wait a week or so - that way the background looks nice too :smile:.

Good luck with your smoker. I wouldn't worry about all the fancy controls. The main reason we had to invest in that is so we can establish a process, get it right on the money, and be able to have a consistent product every time by programming the recipe once it is fine tuned to work with that particular machine.

The other big reason is for health inspectors and liability. This way, we have the wet bulb, dry bulb, and internal temperature documented throughout every moment of the process to verify we did things properly.

If
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Post by crustyo44 » Sat Jan 07, 2012 19:07

Hi Story28,
I can see that the Government, bureaucrats, red tape and others have got you by the gonads.
Same here Mate. Somebody got to pay for the outragious incomes these so-called experts demand and get paid plus all their other side benefits.
Post some more photo's please. I love to feast my eyes on your technological inventions.
Best Wishes with it all.
Regards,
Jan.
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Post by ssorllih » Sat Jan 07, 2012 19:39

We live in a litigious society and because there are people that would cheerfully sell you bad food we need the inspectors mostly because killing the thieves is against the law.
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Post by eightysixCJ » Sat Feb 04, 2012 03:53

Hello all! Some great looking cookers and info here.

Just getting started with sausage this year but have been learning to smoke and BBQ for a few seasons. Here's my cooker. I made it with mostly scraps and salvage. All 1/4" or 5/16" steel and up to 550# (still a few ideas to weld on). It's a reverse flow off-set stick burner. Mostly I use black cherry and apple but also oak, hickory, and maple.

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Post by ssorllih » Sat Feb 04, 2012 04:28

jeez, Tom. that thang is bullet proof up to about .30-30 cal. You won't have to chain it to a tree to make sure that it don't leave home.
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Post by Chuckwagon » Sat Feb 04, 2012 06:32

Tom, that is fabulous! Weighted lid too. Beautiful craftsmanship and welds. Even on stainless... wow! Very nice. What is your first batch of sausage going to be?

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

P.S. Are those racing slicks I see on that machine? :lol:
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! :D
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Post by eightysixCJ » Sun Feb 05, 2012 05:55

Thanks guys. It was fun learning to weld on this project. Not sure what my first sausage will be. I hope it does not take as long to get grinding as it took to pull the trigger on welding up a cooker! :mrgreen: They are slicks! It's heavy but ballanced so it moves quick (just need to keep it away from the hill on my driveway!)

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Post by Maz » Sun Feb 05, 2012 06:29

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/3518/tomsbbq2010.jpg I can't view the images from NOimageshack :evil: :evil: It is so dumb that I cannot eveen view my own images when I post them on a forum. :???:
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Post by story28 » Sat Feb 25, 2012 17:29

Image

Ok, so this is a touch screen on the microprocessor on our smoker where you can edit each column to meet your needs. In the first column, there are features such as dry, cook, refrigerated smoke, natural smoke, cold shower, etc. From there you edit your parameters to meet your time and temperature needs. So, if I were to throw a few whole pigs in there, I would adjust the process accordingly. The wet bulb temp helps you determine the humidity of the smoke house. In the initial phase you will see zero humidity. That is to dry the surface of the product so smoke can adhere. Later in the process humidity increases and decreases and that effects final color of the product and prevents it from drying too much. The last column regulates air flow in the smoke house.


Image

This photo shows the process in its current stage and current conditions. It allows you to spot severe variances. The bottom dots indicate which outputs on the machine are currently functioning.

It was a bit daunting when I first started learning how to use this machine, but now that I converted my recipes to fit this format, it is actually quite beneficial. Almost all the meats I work with come in whole (aside from beef. I am not that tough). Once I establish the result I want from the product in the recipe, I can set the machine and focus on butchery and formulation. More importantly, it yields consistent results!

I will try to post a few more pictures of the smoke chamber and all that soon.
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