Automatic flowerpot smoker

A friend who is very big into BBQ put me onto ceramic smokers. Boy does the stuff from his Big Green Egg taste good.

I didn't feel like splurging that amount of money, so I did like Alton Brown and made a flowerpot smoker. Then a while back I put a PID controller in a box and used it to control the electric coil.



I've done some great food in it since then, my favourite being salmon. The smoker has quite small capacity so I like to use a mild wood like Apple. Hickory can be a bit overpowering. Most of the smoke flavour comes in the first half hour or so.

I usually set the PID controller to about 225°F initially and keep a thermometer probe in the meat to continuously monitor meat temps. As the meat temperature rises, I back off the air temperature in the smoker.

I've put together a complete build thread on my blog together with materials and so on. I hope you find it useful. The PID controller, by the way, would also be great for controlling a 120V heating element for something like, oh I don't know, mashing malt.

Build thread:

Automatic Smoker

Great idea, cool build man

That's awesome man! Can you cold smoke with it? Haven't checked your blog out yet but I'd also like to see the plans for that controller if you don't mind.

I'm afraid you can't cold smoke with this. The heat that generates the smoke also warms up the pot. But there is a schematic for the controller on the blog page if that helps.

Dusted off the Alton Brown special for spring last weekend and smoked a cut up chicken over hickory. Yummy.

Nice!

Simple with precision.

Gonna have to try it.

headbanger said:

That's awesome man! Can you cold smoke with it? Haven't checked your blog out yet but I'd also like to see the plans for that controller if you don't mind.

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I think you could cold smoke with it if you did some modifications. Really, what you'd want is a second chamber and a PID-controlled fan driving smoke from the chamber with the coil & wood to the cold smoke chamber. In fact, you could smoke a brisket or whatever on one side while cold smoking on the other side. It also wouldn't hurt to place the cold smoke chamber lower than the main chamber, which would aid recirculation and also keep it from getting as warm.

I'm an automatic pot smoker

Can't wait to smoke some fresh hops this year... straight off the vine!! ... BBQ and beer where just made fir each other

weirdboy said:

I think you could cold smoke with it if you did some modifications. Really, what you'd want is a second chamber and a PID-controlled fan driving smoke from the chamber with the coil & wood to the cold smoke chamber. In fact, you could smoke a brisket or whatever on one side while cold smoking on the other side. It also wouldn't hurt to place the cold smoke chamber lower than the main chamber, which would aid recirculation and also keep it from getting as warm.

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Typically you cold smoke for many hours so you'd need some method for topping up the wood chips.

alien said:

Typically you cold smoke for many hours so you'd need some method for topping up the wood chips.

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Well you could just really pile them on I suppose, but like most people I just top off every once in a while if I'm smoking something for a really long time.