How to make a smokehouse from the barrel?

Smoked meat like a huge number of people. Even if someone is not their devoted fan, it’s still very nice to invite a group of friends and treat them to something like that. The same applies to gathering in a narrow family circle. But buying ready-made products from the store is very expensive, and there is no complete confidence in their safety for health - rather the opposite. But a simple and fairly efficient smokehouse can be made personally from publicly available materials.

Smoking from the barrel - a very popular thing, while there are many options to do it. It is not at all necessary to be limited to one old water tank, it is often supplemented with various accessories.Moreover, even a wooden barrel can be applied as effectively as a steel structure. The essence of this does not change: smoke comes in, heated to a certain value, under the influence of this smoke, the products change their properties.

In addition to the availability of raw materials (physical and price), also of great importance:

• ease of independent work;
• high performance finished design;
• minimum operating costs.

The long-term experience of the “craftsmen” has made it possible to create a lot of variants of barrel smoke smokers. The lightest (in all senses), even mobile, can be brought by car to a picnic area or for fishing, to a hunting base. The basis for such products are beer kegs or small wooden barrels.If you want to make a camera with a grill effect, it must have a frame.

There is a great variety of stationary products, some of them are designed for hot smoking, others for cold, and still others can perform both of these functions harmoniously.

It is necessary to provide analogs of devices present in industrial smoking chambers:

• chimney;
• smoke generator;
• hoods

The specifics of hot smoked is that the smoke should come from below, overcoming the minimum distance. Technically, this is solved in two different ways. In one of the schemes, a window is cut through so that you can throw in sawdust and ignite it. In the other - put a camera smoking over a separate furnace. The firebox itself is carried out in different ways: it can be a simple dredging in the ground, and a small brazier lined with bricks.

A different approach is practiced when they create a cold-type smokehouse. There is already required to cool the smoke, sometimes you even have to lay a chimney several meters long. It is carried out in the form of trenches, pipes buried in the ground, and so on — there are a lot of options. If suddenly there is very little space, you have to install a double artificially cooled chamber in which there are two compartments and a wet cloth separating them.

More economical and more practical than all home smokehouse, which allows you to combine hot and cold processing modes. The double horizontal chamber is made of a pair of barrels of the same size that are connected by chimneys. When using a wet filter at the top, you can organize half-hot smoking; there is always a combustion chamber at the bottom.

Some home craftsmen prefer the traditional type of smokehouse - the so-called cabinet. The base is made of wood frame, the key elements are timber with a section of 40x40 mm. Whichever case is chosen, it is sheathed on three sides with boards, the thickness of which is 25 mm, and the maximum width - 100 mm.

It will be optimal lining of hardwood:

• aspen;
• alder;
• lime.

Only in extreme cases it is permissible to use coniferous parts, especially since it will be quite easy to find the tree of the three species listed. Regardless of the specific type of material, you need to achieve maximum tightness of the case. This problem is solved through the use of insulating materials, such as hemp rope, placed even in the smallest joints.

The door must fit the front wall., for it, plank size 25x100 mm is used. The perimeter of the opening must be sealed with food-grade sealing rubber, like the one that covers the doors of refrigerators. The roof of the smokehouse make a single or dual gable. In the first case, it should be directed backwards; such a product is formed from boards that are 40 - 50 mm longer than at the base. In the second, a truss system is formed, the slope of which can range from 0.55 to 0.65 m; connection points are always sealed.

The miniature smokehouse is easily made from old beer kegs. You need to lead up to the tank, through which smoke will be supplied, and in the keg itself, cut a hole where the food grate will be placed.It will be even easier to put an ordinary barrel on top of the grill, and not to engage in additional pipes.

The larger version is a vertical smoking chamber with a volume of 200 liters. Choosing such a solution, you will have to equip the base and a special firebox at the bottom of the structure. Meat, fish or poultry can be loaded both vertically and horizontally. When using a hydraulic shutter, the recommended size of the smokehouse is 45x30x25 or 50x30x30 cm. The lid, in which the shutter is present, should not be thicker than 0.2 cm.

A variety of step-by-step instructions for making smoke-based barrels include several basic manipulations that you always have to do with your hands:

• select suitable materials;
• make plans and drawings;
• assemble the structure;
• install it and try it out in action.

And the fact that the smokehouse is homemade does not reduce the demands of either the design or the materials used.

To make a stationary smokehouse, buried in the ground, is quite simple: they dig in advance a trench connecting two distant parts.The firebox in this design is represented by a fire in the pit, and an autonomous stove. The working chamber should be buried in the ground, leaving a hole in the barrel's housing for the entry of smoke. In order to keep the hot gases and the heat they bring in longer, the barrel is covered with bricks.

In order not to dig in it, you can use a smoke actuator from an outdoor stove. To do this, weld the pipe connecting the smokehouse and the furnace box, or a flexible hose and a device that injects smoke. In the second type, it is attractive that the total footprint is reduced. It is very convenient when the working chamber is equipped with a thermometer that helps withstand prescription prescriptions. The viewing window and the means for regulating the thrust will be of great benefit.

In the process of working on the creation of a smokehouse will need to use:

• stainless iron or wooden (oak) barrel;
• or stainless steel keg;
• bricks;
• cement solution;
• slate sheets;
• rod and lattice;
• sheet metal.

The most practical size is 200 liters, and all auxiliary materials for the barrel should correspond to the selected project. In the minimum case, you can use a set of cover or bag fabric, rods for fixing products and filter cloth.

The need to use a welding machine is not always there, but it will definitely be required:

• spade;
• sanding machine;
• roulette;
• building level.

The plan will help you to make a smokehouse out of an old barrel or even two barrels as accurately as possible. Usually, they simply make a schematic representation of the future construction in longitudinal projection and show the internal details. If the smoking chamber digs into the soil, you need to draw lines that separate the chambers from each other and show the nuances of each compartment. In cases where the device will be stationary, it is recommended to show the relative position of the elements, their size and methods of fixing.

The cold-type smokehouse means that the firebox goes into the ground about 0.5 m., the chimney is taken out of it towards the working chamber. Entering the chimney is organized either in the side or bottom (if the pedestal is thought out). The total length of the chimney with natural cooling is 300 cm, and if the smoke is cooled forcibly, the minimum length will be 1 m. If a hot smokehouse is equipped, the smallest permissible gap is 0.3 m, it avoids overheating of the products and clogging with soot. The width of the chimney is not less than 0.6 m, this is taken into account when digging a trench.

It is imperative to install a filter barrier and provide for the trapping of fat in a metal pan; both are periodically cleaned, i.e. must be removable. In addition, there should be free access to the pallet during the smoking process. It is advisable to put a barrel not directly on the ground, but on bricks. Many craftsmen recommend making fireboxes from smaller (compared to the main) barrels or using welded steel ducts.

It is not necessary to use the traditional fire method of smoking meat or fish.Simple and easy to use solutions based on electric. The heating element transfers heat to the sawdust. They smolder, and hot smoke enters the processed products, the food is dehydrated.

The advantages of electric smokehouse are:

• autonomous work;
• the ability to adjust the temperature using a thermostat;
• creating from publicly available components;
• no need for complex culinary knowledge.

Most self-made electric smokehouse works in barrels with a capacity of 200 liters. It is recommended to supplement them with a thermostat that changes the temperature from 20 to 90 degrees. Instead of the traditional sawdust grate, an old saucepan can be used. To make it easier to move the camera for smoking, you can fasten the wheels from the furniture to the body below.

Remove the cover from the hotplate and remove all parts., with the exception of TENA, which, together with two wires, is attached with screws to the bottom of the barrel in the center. The thermostat is fixed slightly above the furnace, connect it with the heating element in series according to the scheme. Fastening of the thermal sensor should be made in the place where the products will be put.The optimum wire cross section is 2.5–3 mm.

The thermometer in such a system should be purely mechanical. Baking dishes with a diameter of 0.5 m are sometimes used as a pan for fat. This can be a special pan removed from an oven of ancient gas stoves. Better than usual show themselves in practice smokehouse with a hydraulic gate.

The figure shows the simplest type of smokehouse from the barrel. All its modification has been reduced to fastening two perpendicularly directed rods, on which it will be easy to string pieces of meat or fish.

And this is how a smoking chamber from an old barrel placed on wheels looks like. A stove and a smoke generator are installed nearby. Even the external rumpled surface of the barrel does not interfere with the lattice laid on top to perform its function.

It shows how attractive can be a smokehouse for fish, which already put the entire possible set of product. On wooden bars in this design smoking will happen quickly and accurately!

Here is another option - the barrel is placed above the metal box, they are separated from each other by a metal pan,in which the melted fat will run off. You can choose any scheme, as long as the embodiment is competent and accurate.

How to make a smokehouse from the barrel, see the video below.