The science of smoke??

[wkahler]

Here is my question and i may be WAY over thinking it but i was watching my smoker the other day.  Now lets start this out with i have a Traeger and i have recently been blessed with a AmazeN smoker tube from the Christmas gift exchange here on the forum.  So i am starting to smoke cheese and going to cold smoke some pork bellies here once i order them from the butcher.  Now here is the questions is there a difference from smoking in a vertical style smoker like the Bradley and smoking horizontal like the Traeger?  Does the smoke going up through the meat/cheese penetrate better then if the smoke just floats across the meat like sitting in my traeger?  Just thinking in my head that smoke going up^^^^^^ through the meat would "penetrate" it better then going across >>>>>>>> the meat and cheese??

[Wildcat]

I have used various brands of smokers (horizontal and vertical) and can not distinguish between the two types with the end product. I can tell the difference between a hard wood smoker and the Bradley. The Bradley seems to produce a cleaner taste and generally requires less time in the actual application of smoke. For my taste, some things such as lean cuts of steak taste better with the harsher tasting hard wood smoke, while other things such as pork and fish taste better from the Bradley. IMHO it is all about personal taste and ease in the application of smoke. All smokers will effectively smoke food.

[KyNola]

Great explanation WC!  Nothing I can add to that.

[wkahler]

That was kind of my gut feeling to the questions i asked but wanted to toss it out there just to see what kind of response i got!  Sometimes i over think things but it was something that had crossed my mind thats for sure!

[BoxcarBetts]

You gotta remember that the vent will only allow out a certain amount of smoke volume at a time, which is going to be less than the volume of the smoke chamber. The smoke chamber is going to fill up and produce a certain degree of circulation from convection  within itself, so in my mind, horizontal or vertical won't make a difference. Now, if the whole top was open or the whole side open, it would all just spew out and in that case, you would probably see a difference between vertical and horizontal.