Cold smoker questions

[Adventureman82]

Got these for the bottom of the smoke tube to keep the wood burning.

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[Poochie]

You might try reposting that photo. Not seeing much

[Adventureman82]

You might try reposting that photo. Not seeing much

This work?

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[Cheesehead_Griller]

Are the cold smokers a pain in the ass to keep lit or what? I ordered one with my new KK. I'm curious to see how it actually works. I've read mixed reviews. 

[Poochie]

From what I've read, and I don't have one, it looks like larger wood chips give the most trouble. I think pellets work fine in it. I still may add it on...if my ship ever docks.

[Adventureman82]

From what I've read, and I don't have one, it looks like larger wood chips give the most trouble. I think pellets work fine in it. I still may add it on...if my ship ever docks.

I have tried pellets, chips, and mini-splits. The pellets stayed lit, but made too much smoke, were hard to control, and left a ton of residue in the tube. The chips worked ok, but burn up really fast and require reloading frequently. The mini-splits work the nest but are hard to keep lit. I have tried to put charcoal chunks in the bottom of the tube with little success due to the inconsistent size of the chunks.

I tried these hooka briquettes last night and they worked great. I probably rushed it a little and should have let the briquettes burn a little longer before putting them in the tube.

All in all, these worked well and the pork turned out pretty good.

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[tony b]

I've had the best success with pellets. Get good quality ones so you don't worry about what binders they used to make them, which leads to the buildup issues. I use Lumber Jack brand. Once lit, they seem to do OK on their own. I blast them through the side holes in the cold smoker with my MAPP torch. I've had mixed results with trying to put lit charcoal in the tube. YMMV

[johnnymnemonic]

Are the cold smokers a pain in the ass to keep lit or what? I ordered one with my new KK. I'm curious to see how it actually works. I've read mixed reviews. 

I like mine. It is not a super pain. Setting up the KK compared to other grills is a bit of a production. Everything is built so heavy. The basket splitter. Once you are at the level of commitment both time and money wise to cook on a KK, the extra time to mess with the cold smoker doesn’t seem like a lot.

Anyway the cold smoker is fairly easy to set up. A couple of tips- the cold smoker comes with a wing nut. I keep that wing nut attached to my grill so that I am not fiddling with the screws when I want to use my cold smoker.

Use a torch to light it. I was using my looftlighter but I got just a plain ol bernzomatic multi use propane torch for Christmas. That I just use with a bottle of camp fuel. The thin flame is perfect for lighting the cold smoker and does a way better job than the electric torch for this app.

You want to light it on one side until flames are shooting out the other side. Then run the torch on the other side for good measure. Rather than putting my pellets in the microwave I just make sure I use pellets that are stored indoors. I think the biggest difference I have seen so far is that if I use the pellets that are stored in my box outside (even though the box is waterproof I think it is more moist out there). The pellets I got for Christmas are treager brand - probably not the best. But they were fresh and dry and I kept them indoors - and they work flawlessly vs the kingsford hickory pellets I have outside which are actually supposed to be OK pellets. I did not notice a huge amount of build up from the treager pellet even though they are cheap.

Anyway if you have dry pellets and light it properly it burns for hours with no messing around after the fact. The mixed results I have had as far as I can tell were related to the dryness of the media and the way I light it. The last time I used it. 4 hours but probably could have gone 6 without touching it based on how much unburned pellets were left.

I ran the cold smoker with wood chips once and chips are ok but the chips I have are hickory given to me by arborists from grinding up a tree in my front yard. Even though they have been sitting around for 3 years they are not kiln dried. This is great for flavor but they make a very sticky soot. I would try chips again but not those because I had to clean out the tube. Even after soaking in pbw it was difficult to get the sticky soot off. I don’t think it needs to be perfectly clean but it was the first time I used the thing.

Just remember the screen side of the pipe faces down. That was my first mistake with it. Too much ash gets in and clogs the tube if the screen is facing upward. If you have any questions when you get yours ping me and I will help you. I have made all the mistakes at this point.


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