Cold Smoking with relative humidity

[smoker lar]

Hi All, I'm a newbie to this forum and loving every bit of information I have seen so far. I got a question. I'm trying to built a cold smoker along with my electric masterbuilt smoker(temp. starts at 100-275). I build a seperate box(smoke generator) and added a smoke daddy to it. I added a 3" hose that runs from the side of the smoker down to a 3" hole in the smoke generator. This gives me all the smoke I need. For my heat, I added a small electric hot plate in the bottom of the smoker so I can regular my heat from 60-90 degrees.  That also works well. Heres my problem, I've read so much that you have to maintain a relative humidity of 75-85% to get good summer sausage. So I went and bought a small humidifier and a temp/humidity gauge. I filled the tank with water and placed it in the smoker.Before I started the humidifier I checked the humidity on the gauge and it was at 34%. I set my hot plate to 75 degrees and started the humidifier just to see if I could get it up to 75-85%. Keep in mind,the temperature outside is between 45-55 degrees right now. Anyway, I let the unit run for an hour and went an checked the gauge for humidity, it didn't move 2%. I opened the smoker door and the steam boiled out  so I know there was enough humidity to make a difference. I know my gauge is correct because I checked it with another one at the same time. Can anybody tell me what I'm might do different so I can get the humidity to rise. Any and all comments are appreciated. Thank you. :'(   

[smokeNcanuck]

Sorry, I don't have any experience with cold smoking. ??? Someone should be along to give some advise.
There are a BUNCH of really smart people lurking around this forum.
All I can tell you is Welcome to the forum!!

sNc

[classicrockgriller]

Welcome to the Forum.

I know that when New people come to the forum we always tell them to keep the vent open to let the moisture escape.

Don't know what position your vent was at, but you may try closing it down some.

Hope this helps.

Hab's will probably read this later and be able to help you more.

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi smoker lar,

Welcome to the forum.

Just a little clarification is needed. Since you are cold smoking, I'm assuming that your are making fully dry cured summer sausage and not semi-dried. The stage you are in is the fermenting stage (how long is the fermentation period?), the temperature of the bacteria culture you are using ideally needs 75°F to grow or you are using another ingredient to lower the pH, and you will move the sausage to an area that it can be fully dry cured.

It is important to maintain high humidity, some sources say 65% RH, other go as high as 85% - 90% Rh. I prefer to stay in the 65% range, there are less problems with harmful bacteria growing on your sausage. It is unclear which gauge you are using to monitor the humidity. If it is the gauge on the humidifier, and it is digital, a lot of digital models will not read over 65% RH, so the reading may have gone beyond the range it can monitor and it may have reset to the original reading. If you have a digital model, you may have to switch to a non-digital one. If you are using a separate gauge, I've found that if there is visible steam (steam in this case means evaporated water), then the sensor of the gauge can get over saturated and will provide a false reading. This can also happen to the sensor in the humidifier. If you are seeing visible steam, then my guess is that you have enough humidity.

Don't worry too much about the humidity being perfect during the fermentation stage. That is generally a short period of time (8 - 24 hours), just make sure the environment is moist during this period, so the casings and/or outer surface of the sausage doesn't dry out. When you move the sausage to your drying cabinet or area, that is where the humidity is most important.

[smoker lar]

Habanero, thanks for the quick responce. Yes, I will be making dry-cured summer sausage and yes this would be the fermenting stage. My recipe says after everything is ground and mixed, leave in refrigerator for 3 days. Take out and stuff in casing  and hang for 12 hours with a RH of 75-80%. Fire up smoker with heavy smoke at 75-80 degrees with RH at 70-80% for 3 days. Then dry at 52-56 degrees with RH at 65% for 30 days. The gauge I'm using is a $20 digital that reads both the temp. and humidity at the same time. It has a sensor on a wire that I stick down the dampener on the top of my smoker.( I leave the dampener wide open)There is no digital gauge on the humidifier, just a knob that turns to let more or less moisture out.What I did was  I filled the 1 gal. tank and stuck the humidifier in the smoker turning the knob about half way open. I set the hot plate to 75 degrees and wanted to get an idea what the RH would read at that half way setting so I knew if I had to increase or decrease the knob to get a RH of 75-85%. After an hour, my temp. setting was at 77 degrees but the humidity setting didn't change. It stayed at 34-36%. So I open the smoker door and the moisture just rolled out(reminded me when I open the door during smoking to check something and you let all that beautiful smoke out as well as heat) I knew at that point something is not right. That sausage would of had so much moisture clinging to it it would never of dried. You may be right about digital humidity gauges failing. I have an old mercury one in the garage I will try and see what that reads. What do you use for a humidity gauge? My idea for a drying area was just to keep the sausage hang in the smoker with no heat and regulate the RH that way. If you have a better idea I would be happy to hear it. This cold smoking is all new to me and I also read you can get very sick or die from it if you don't follow directions. Thanks again to all. :-*               

[Habanero Smoker]

If you can maintain the temperature in the smoker around 55°F - 60°F, then you should use it. The humidity should be better able to control, since you will not be using any heat or very little. By any chance was your Thermo-Hygrometer, an indoor/outdoor model. Many of the indoor/outdoor models do not have a humidity sensor for the outdoor probe. So if you only have an temperature sensor in the probe, the humidity reading you are getting is that of the RH outside the smoker. If the probe does measure humidity, once your humidistat drys out you should be able to use it again.

You may find that the humidifier is not needed; at least during the first couple of weeks. The sausage give off so much moisture that I had problems keeping my humidity below 85% RH. The Thermo-Hygrometer I used during the fermentation stage also failed on me, and gave a constant reading of 99% RH, for about a day after it was removed from the smoker. After a day or two it dried out and began giving accurate readings again. So I now don't measure the humidity during the fermentation, I just make sure the air stays moist.

I had to build a Dry Curing Cabinet, there was not other option for me to control the environment. If your current setup up work then your are all set. Here is a link to the equipment I use. One of these days a will do a better write up:
Dry Curing Cabinet

Here is a more innovative setup by teach:
Another Dry Curing Cabinet

[achilles007]

Habanero, thanks for the quick responce. Yes, I will be making dry-cured summer sausage and yes this would be the fermenting stage. My recipe says after everything is ground and mixed, leave in refrigerator for 3 days. Take out and stuff in casing  and hang for 12 hours with a RH of 75-80%. Fire up smoker with heavy smoke at 75-80 degrees with RH at 70-80% for 3 days. Then dry at 52-56 degrees with RH at 65% for 30 days. The gauge I'm using is a $20 digital that reads both the temp. and humidity at the same time. It has a sensor on a wire that I stick down the dampener on the top of my smoker.( I leave the dampener wide open)There is no digital gauge on the humidifier, just a knob that turns to let more or less moisture out.What I did was  I filled the 1 gal. tank and stuck the humidifier in the smoker turning the knob about half way open. I set the hot plate to 75 degrees and wanted to get an idea what the RH would read at that half way setting so I knew if I had to increase or decrease the knob to get a RH of 75-85%. After an hour, my temp. setting was at 77 degrees but the humidity setting didn't change. It stayed at 34-36%. So I open the smoker door and the moisture just rolled out(reminded me when I open the door during smoking to check something and you let all that beautiful smoke out as well as heat) I knew at that point something is not right. That sausage would of had so much moisture clinging to it it would never of dried. You may be right about digital humidity gauges failing. I have an old mercury one in the garage I will try and see what that reads. What do you use for a humidity gauge? My idea for a drying area was just to keep the sausage hang in the smoker with no heat and regulate the RH that way. If you have a better idea I would be happy to hear it. This cold smoking is all new to me and I also read you can get very sick or die from it if you don't follow directions. Thanks again to all. :-*               

Hi there, smokerlar.

Along with you two, I too, used to peruse forums in search for a way of setting up a cold smoker capable of not only holding precise temperatures but one that could also give me reliable humidity also.

Truth is-- I really wouldnt worry about it. For the amount of time in the period that one cold smokes, the specifics on the relative humidity really arent that necessary-- as many of our cold smokers are not set up to be that sophisticated anyway in the first place.

As Habanearo said-- the main thing to focus on the RH is when its in the drying room, or fermentation/curing chamber, THATS where it really counts.
Temperature and the amount of smoke really are only the two MAJOR things one needs to be watchful of when cold smoking.

But then again-- I guess it wouldnt hurt to shell out extra money in trying to get the humidity right, either. Its up to you. Just my .02 cents.