Smoking indoors?

Beewacker · November 13, 2005, 06:43:32 AM

I just got my SS Bradley and it's too pretty to stick outside, even with it's new cover on. I was considering setting it up inside my garage and adapting my hot water heater vent pipe to exhaust the smoke and heat outside. Essentially I'd be terminating the vent pipe with a little "exhaust hood" over the vent on the Bradley. Does it sound do-able or do you think the smoke output would be too much for a 3" vent.

Thanks all,

Ron

ritzdeliman · November 13, 2005, 08:55:46 AM

If you put a small fan on top of the smoker and have it directed out the vent then you should'nt have a problem. In order to have the smoke exiting it should be drawn out by a mechanical force that is greater than the pressure inside your enclosed space,(a fan).otherwise the smoke will go where it chooses and fill the space. We are not working with co2 here so the only problem would be with the smell that sticks to your clothes and other materials. I happen to like the smell of smoke , it reminds me of...victory. But my wife does'nt think the same way, she just gets hungry. ritz

car54 · November 13, 2005, 01:34:51 PM

I would be concerned that the fan would draw too much air through the Bradley which would reduce the temperature and the smoke quantity. I would suggest a draft hood over it so that you get natural draft.

Brad

JJC · November 14, 2005, 01:00:17 AM

Welcome to the Foum, Beewacker!

Those covers work great--I keep mine on a covered back porch so it's just a couple of feet from the kitchen door. If you really want to keep it in your garage, why not get a cheap folding stand ($15-25 will get you a sturdy one) and do your smoking just inside the open door? No need to worry about adapting anything. Just a thought . . .

John
Newton MA

Beewacker · November 17, 2005, 03:05:07 AM

Hey guys, thanks for all your suggestions! The temptation was too great for me on last Sunday. I couldn't take the time to set up the venting system so I set it up outside on a table & broke it in with a smoked chicken. A little drier than I thought it should be but otherwise fantastic.
I think I'll end up using some dryer vent and venting it outside through the side of the garage. A lot less trouble.

Thanks again,

Ron

TonyI · November 19, 2005, 02:45:10 AM

Hi, My name is Tony and I am new here. I have just purchased my first Bradley smoker and have used it 3 times now. Today I decided to smoke 20 lbs of pork inside my garage due to the extreme cold temps. I configured a flexible dryer vent tube to the top of the smoker and ran it under my garage door with the vent about 1/2 open. After a few hours the internal temps (according to the thermometer provided) were only approaching 190-195, and I noticed a lot of water leaking out from under the smoker. I opened it up and was blasted by a lot of steam. The water pan was overflowing and the meat was far from having a nice crusty texture. It seemed like I was steaming them instead of smoking. I removed the vent tube and recovered nicely after a few more hours. Just my two cents. But thats my story.

jaeger · November 20, 2005, 03:39:49 AM

Welcome to the forum Tony!
Don't be a stranger!!!

Doug

wildcard · November 20, 2005, 04:03:15 PM

I ran into a similar problem when cold smoking salmon. I made a separate smoker unit with a large rural mailbox (I think I could store a month of mail in this thing). The problem is that, even though it's supposed to be "cold smoke", the only "draft" in the setup is from convection (hot air rising). If I put the smoker on the floor, all I got was smoke coming out of the smoke box unit, and nothing was flowing to the smoker.

If I can get this paste image thing working, I'll put in a picture here.

Once I put the smoker above the smoke box, the hot air could rise through the smoker and draw new smoke from the smoke box.

I think, if you want the unit to work correctly "indoors" you *have* to make sure that there is enough air flowing through the smoker box. A small 3" fan like they use for computer CPUs should do the job. The longer the hose you have, the more fan power you need. Another thought is to put the fan on the outside portion (at the exhaust vent) of the hose, and allow it to draw air through the hose. The pressure losses might be enough to have a rational amount of suction at the smoker.

wildcard · November 20, 2005, 04:12:13 PM

OK, here's the second attempt at posting the image.

JJC · November 21, 2005, 04:28:56 AM

Welcome to the Forum, Wildcard. Thanks for contributing so quickly, but I couldn't see either of your pix.

John
Newton MA

Oldman · November 21, 2005, 05:03:06 AM

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I opened it up and was blasted by a lot of steam. The water pan was overflowing<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Be very careful of water running out the front door. It will short out your rheostat which is connected to the slider knob.

Wildcard, welcome to the group, and I also cannot see your images.

Olds

jb9 · November 21, 2005, 10:18:07 PM

tada! [:D]

JJC · November 23, 2005, 01:54:41 AM

Very cool [8D][8D][8D]!

John
Newton MA

ritzdeliman · November 23, 2005, 05:04:43 AM

So thats where my mailbox went!!!![:D]