How to make a smokehouse from a barrel?

Smoked products are liked by a huge number of people. Even if someone is not their devoted fan, it is still very pleasant to invite a group of friends and treat them to something like that. The same applies to gatherings 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 quite effective smokehouse can be made with your own hands from publicly available materials.

A barrel smokehouse is a very popular thing, and there are many options for doing 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 is supplied inside, 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), it is also of great importance:

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

Many years of experience of "craftsmen" allowed to create many variants of barrel smokers. The lightest (in every sense) are even mobile, they can be brought by car to a picnic site or fishing, to a hunting base. Beer kegs or small-sized wooden barrels serve as the basis for such products. 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 smoking, 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 specificity of hot smoking is that the smoke must come from below, overcoming the minimum distance. This is technically solved in two different ways. In one of the schemes, a window is cut through so that you can throw sawdust and kindle them. In the other, a smoking chamber is placed above a separate firebox. The firebox itself is performed in different ways: it can be a simple recess in the ground, and a small brazier, lined with bricks.

A different approach is practiced when creating a cold-type smokehouse. Here it is already necessary to cool the smoke, sometimes it is even necessary to lay a chimney several meters long. It is performed 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 chamber with artificial cooling, in which there are two compartments and a wet cloth separating them.

The most economical and practical of all is a home smokehouse, which allows you to combine hot and cold processing modes.A double horizontal chamber is made from a pair of barrels of the same size, which are connected by chimneys. When using a wet filter at the top, semi-hot smoking can be organized; the combustion chamber is always located at the bottom.

Some home craftsmen prefer the traditional type of smokehouse - the so-called cabinet. As a base, a frame is made of wood, the key elements are a bar 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 is 100 mm.

Hardwood lining will be optimal:

• aspen;
• alder;
• fake.

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

The door must match the dimensions of the front wall, planks with a size of 25x100 mm are used for it. The perimeter of the opening should be sealed with food-grade sealing rubber, similar to that used for refrigerator doors. The roof of the smokehouse is made single-pitched or 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 rafter system is formed, the slope of which can be from 0.55 to 0.65 m; joints are always sealed.

A miniature smokehouse is easily made from an old beer keg. A pipe must be brought to the container through which the smoke will be supplied, and a hole must be cut in the keg itself, where the grill with the food will be placed. It will be even easier to put an ordinary barrel on top of the grill, and not deal with additional pipes.

A larger option is a vertical smoking chamber with a volume of 200 liters. Having chosen such a solution, you will have to equip a base and a special firebox in the lower part of the structure. You can load meat, fish or poultry both vertically and horizontally. When using a hydraulic seal, the recommended dimensions of the smokehouse are 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 barrel smokers include several basic manipulations that you always have to do with your hands:

• select suitable materials;
• draw up plans and drawings;
• assemble the structure;
• install it and try it out.

And the fact that the smokehouse is home-made does not reduce the requirements for either design or the materials used.

It is quite simple to make a stationary smokehouse buried in the ground: a trench is dug in advance, connecting two remote parts. A firebox in this design can be represented by a fire in a pit, and an autonomous stove. The working chamber should be buried in the ground, for the entry of smoke, a hole is left in the barrel body. To keep the hot gases and the heat they bring inside longer, the barrel is covered with bricks.

In order not to dig it in, you can use a smoke drive from an outdoor stove. To do this, a pipe is welded connecting the smokehouse and the oven box, or a flexible hose and a device that injects smoke. What is attractive about the second type is that the total footprint is reduced.It is very convenient when the cooking chamber is equipped with a thermometer to help with the prescription. The viewing window and the means for controlling the draft will be of great benefit.

In the process of working on creating a smokehouse, you will need to use:

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

The most practical size is considered to be 200 liters, and all auxiliary materials for the barrel must correspond to the chosen project. As a minimum, you can use a set of lids or sackcloths, rods for securing products and a filter cloth.

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

• bayonet shovel;
• Grinder;
• roulette;
• building level.

The plan will help to make a smokehouse from an old barrel or even from two barrels as clearly and competently as possible. Usually, they simply make a schematic representation of the future structure in a longitudinal projection and show the internal details. If the smoking chamber is buried in the soil, it is necessary to draw lines separating 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 fastening.

A cold type smokehouse implies that the firebox goes into the ground by about 0.5 m, a chimney is taken out of it in the direction of the working chamber. The chimney inlet is organized either in the side or from the bottom (if the pedestal is thought out). The total length of the chimney with natural cooling is from 300 cm, and if the smoke is forcedly cooled, the minimum length will be 1 m.If a hot smokehouse is equipped, the smallest allowable gap is 0.3 m, it avoids overheating of products and their clogging with soot. The chimney width is made at least 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 with a metal pan; one and the other are periodically cleaned, that is, they must be removable. In addition, free access to the pallet should be provided during the smoking process. It is advisable to place the barrel not directly on the ground, but on bricks. Many craftsmen recommend making furnaces from smaller (compared to the main ones) barrels or using welded steel boxes.

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

The advantages of an electric smokehouse are:

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

Most homemade electric smokers operate in 200L barrels. It is recommended to supplement them with a thermostat that changes the temperature from 20 to 90 degrees. An old saucepan can be used in place of the traditional sawdust grate. To make it easier to move the smoking chamber, the wheels from the furniture can be screwed to the bottom of the body.

The cover must be removed from the hotplate and all parts must be removed., with the exception of the heating element, which, together with two wires, is attached with screws at the bottom of the barrel in the center.The thermostat is fixed a little higher than the oven, it is connected to the heating element in series according to the scheme. The fixing of the heat sensor should be done in the place where the products will be placed. The optimal wire section is 2.5–3 mm.

The thermometer in such a system must be purely mechanical. Baking dishes with a diameter of 0.5 m are sometimes used as a tray for fat.It can be a special tray removed from the oven of ancient gas stoves. Smokehouses with a hydraulic seal show themselves better than usual in practice.

The figure shows the simplest type of barrel smokehouse. All its modification was reduced to fixing two perpendicularly directed rods, on which it would be easy to string pieces of meat or fish.

And this is what a smoking chamber looks like from an old barrel set on wheels. A stove and a smoke generator are installed nearby. Even the crumpled outer surface of the barrel will in no way interfere with the grate placed on top to fulfill its function.

This shows how attractive a smokehouse can be for a fish that has already been filled with the entire possible set of product. On wooden blocks in such a design, smoking will take place quickly and accurately!

Here is another option - the barrel is placed above a metal box, they are separated from each other by a metal tray, into which the melted fat will run down. You can choose any scheme, the main thing is that the implementation is competent and accurate.

For information on how to make a smokehouse from a barrel, see the video below.