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"No Hassle" Electric Smoker
Since successful meat smoking requires relatively low temperatures, it's only fitting that Al Franzen made his smoker out of an old chest freezer standing on end.
For a heat source, Franzen avoided the hassle of charcoal that has to be kept lit. He also avoided using propane, where the flame can go out and you e
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"No Hassle" Electric Smoker FARM HOME Food 29-5-32 Since successful meat smoking requires relatively low temperatures, it's only fitting that Al Franzen made his smoker out of an old chest freezer standing on end.
For a heat source, Franzen avoided the hassle of charcoal that has to be kept lit. He also avoided using propane, where the flame can go out and you end up with a box full of gas waiting for a spark. Instead he used components from an electric stove.
He got the freezer and stove free for hauling them away. "I mounted the stove burners at the bottom of the smoker," explains Franzen. "Then I mounted the oven thermostat in the smoke chamber and the control panel on the outside."
All Franzen has to do is set the temperature where he wants it for successful smoking and walk away. Wood chips set in cast iron pots on the burner fill the chamber with smoke. If the temperature gets too high, the burners turn off until the temperature falls. Franzen keeps the thermostat set at about 120? for about six hours and then cranks it up to about 220• until the meat reaches the recommended internal temperature for the meat being smoked.
"The thermostat isn't exact," explains Franzen. "It may go 10• over when heating and then go 10• under before it turns back on. The cast iron containers hold their temperature, however, and that tempers the fluctuation."
The chest freezer lets him smoke 80 sticks of deer sausage or 24 chickens at once. He figures it will hold up to 240 lbs. of meat at a time.
For the smoke, Franzen cuts 1/4-in. slices from branches pruned from his small apple orchard, as well as from local cherry and hickory trees. He mixes them with sawdust which smokes faster. Lids on his iron pots keep the wood from flaming, and vents he cut in the top and the bottom of the smoker maintain adequate airflow to keep the smoke fresh.
A friend cut the steel rods that the meat hangs from, and the hangers themselves were free, too. "The meat hangers are heavy duty coat hangers a store was throwing away," says Franzen, who admits to an ability to find a use for almost anything.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Albert Franzen, 17732 Scott Rd., Hinckley, Ill. 60520 (ph 815 286-7463; afranzen1 @msn.com).
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