A-MAZE-N Cold Smoke Generator

Thanks for the clarification, Martin!  Like I said - I don't know much about the AMNPS, so I'm eager to learn!

Gregg - the cheese looks...like cheese. ;)  Just kidding!  You can see some darkening.  Trust me - with 5 hours in the smoke, it will definitely be smoky enough!  As it sits in the fridge, the smoke will penetrate deep into the cheese.  Not sure why this "mellowing" happens, but would like to know.  Guess I'll have to do a little research! ;)

A few days from now, I bet that cheese will be phenomenal!
 
11:00
Still smoking.
12 hours of smoke.
I did open it up real quick and it is almost done.
8 degrees outside and calm...75 degrees in the smoker...that's before opening.
 
After the burn....
dur2EI6.jpg
 
Appears to me that both the cheese and the sawdust burn were both successful. Congratulations to you both!
 
Someone gave me a few pounds of Traeger hickory pellets....they're crap and need to be burned up.
I may try a pellet burn in the #1 sometime soon, just to see what happens.
 
DiggingDogFarm said:
Someone gave me a few pounds of Traeger hickory pellets....they're crap and need to be burned up.
I may try a pellet burn in the #1 sometime soon, just to see what happens.

I will be interested to hear how this goes. I saw that Costco carries these Traeger Hickory Pellets and was thinking of picking some up to try. But if they are not good, I'll stick with my Frantz Hickory Saw Dust.
 
Trager pellets are good wood I have burned about 100 pounds of them. I have used them in a Trager, over charcoal and in my #3.
 
Brian, do you just use them in the smoke box?

Do you use a chip screen or foil?

My guess is that they would burn similar to chips and would be used in situations where you would typically use chips (short time/low temp smokes). Am I right on this?

Do you use them for long higher temp smokes too?

I have tons of sawdust and plenty of chunks, so not sure I really need the pellets. But I like to keep my options open as every smoke can be tweaked a little if you want to.
 
I did my first test last night with some PitMaster pellets that I received with the A-MAZE-N and I got them going really well with the door open. I was actually able to maintain a flame with the door open for 3-4 minutes before I blew it out so it could start smoldering. The saw dust always blew out. There could be a couple of reasons for this. First, I bought a better torch that put out a bigger flame. Second, the wind may not have been quite as strong as my last attempt with the dust.

I added a small piece of Pork Belly that I had been brining with my last batch of Canadian Bacon that I smoked on Saturday. This was a small piece of skinned pork belly from the hog that we butchered during deer processing season.

Since I was cooking meat that could drip, I left the smoke box in and placed the A-MAZE-N on the very bottom shelf on the opposite side of the pork belly which was up on the top shelf.

After about an hour the smoke went out, so I lit it up again and added the Jerky Dryer. This totally did the trick and it smoked non-stop for the next 10-12 hours. I went to sleep with about 1.5 rows of pellets left after it had already been smoking for 5-6 hours.

This was a cold smoke where I did not turn on the Smokin-It heating element. The pellets definitely burned hotter than the dust that I tried before, but I am not sure if that was because of the pellets or that I had the Jerky Dryer going. My temps actually got up to about 115 at one point, before going down. While OK for Bacon, this would not have been good for cheese. So, going forward, I may have to add some ice, and/or buy/borrow a cold smoke plate when doing cheese.

As you can see from the picture below, I got a nice full burn on the pellets.

My only complaint is that while the color of the belly looks really good, the smoke smell while strong, does not really smell the best. I know this was a long time in the smoke, so maybe it just needs to mellow a bit.

I have it wrapped in plastic wrap and in the fridge for now. For any of you bacon experts, how long should I leave in plastic wrapped before, I vacuum pack it? I'm not going to dirty my slicer for this one little piece of bacon, so just going to package it whole and slice as needed.
 

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Yeah, pellets naturally burn hotter than dust.
I let cold-smoked bacon mellow at least a week before slicing.
You'll get all sorts of answers regarding cold smoking vs. warm or hot smoking.
I only cold smoke (75 degrees of less) bacon because I prefer the flavor, it keeps better and warm or hot smoked bacon is prone to "warmed over" flavor and that's something I DEFINITELY don't want in my bacon.

 
Thanks Martin. So, since I am not going to slice this one, should I be letting it mellow in plastic wrap in the fridge for a while before vacuum packing? Or would it be OK to just vacuum pack it now?
 
I had a couple of spikes into the 90s and a very short time above 100. But for the most part, the bulk of the smoke was in the 75-85 range. A little higher than your suggested 75, but pretty close I would think.
 
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