If you have a private plot, it gives you a unique opportunity to cook home-made smoke products. Of course, for this purpose you need to build a smoker.
First of all, you need to choose the suitable place for building. It must be a land lot, distant from the other buildings in this area, as the smoking is accompanied with fire, so you should exclude and the smoker poses a threat to fire-safety. To build a smoker, you should assign the area of approximately 4 square meters. At that, it is better to make it rectangular. You must lay the canal of chimney in the ground. The place of its laying must be marked beforehand. The smoker is made out of brick. However, not any kind of brick will fit for this purpose. For example, lime sand brick isn’t used for building such constructions, as it can be destroyed by the strong heating.
The smoking chamber will be located on the end of the canal. The sufficient size of it is 1 square meter. The fire-chamber must be about one and a half meter in height (or a little smaller). You can make the smoking chamber out of brick with your own hands.
The furnace will be situated on the other end of the canal. The chamber must be located over the furnace, so you should either locate the chamber aslope or deepen a special canal in the direction of furnace. After digging a chimney canal, brick its bottom. It is undesirable to use cement laying, better choose the loam. After that, brick the walls of the canal: they must consist of two courses of brickwork. The bricks are laid on edge, on each side of laid canal base. Then cover the top of the canal. You can make it with metal sheet or brick. If you choose metal sheet, make sure that its width is not less than 4 mm.
The canal of chimney must get into the smoke house to a depth of 20 cm. The perimeter of connecting the channel and the chamber must be powdered with the ground layer no less than 15 cm. In the upper part of the smoke house you should place the rods for hanging products which you will smoke. The lid of smoke house can be made either of metal or out of wood, while the furnace screen must be made of steel. Its width must be no less than 3-4 mm. The lid of smoke house must fit closely, but have a small hole or crack for the weak air outflow.
It is well to use alder or birch for smoking. You can also add a branch of juniper to add the pungent flavor.
