Soooo, I've got an operational smokehouse!! I finally got to fire it up last Sunday and actually see smoke come out of the chimney!
As I mentioned in the previous version of this blog (before like an idiot I accidentally deleted it), I got the idea for the smokehouse from a lady who frequents the BBQ Bretheren bulletin board forum. She lives somewhere in Oklahoma I think, shoot I don't even know. Doesn't matter. Her blog is incredible and I wish I could do half the things she does. Anyhow, I based the design of this smokehouse very heavily on hers. Many thanks to Jeanne ( I probably mis-spelled that). Her blog is, 'Cowgirls Country Life' and is an excellent read. I owe her a very big Thank You!
So without further blathering on my part, here it is!!
It was built completely from scratch, except for the Weber Smokey Joe grill. Although even that is modified to be what is called a mini-WSM. The fire resides in the black Weber grill in the foreground. There is no fire in the smokehouse itself.
So do the wavy, smeary TV flashback thing and I'll take you through it from the beginning. Here is the same spot before spending too much money and drinking a few too many beers.
Yeah, not very pretty. The weeds had pretty much taken over and what little grass was left was getting pretty straggly. Even the vegetable garden was looking bleak.
Soooo, after standing around for a while, thinking about it, having another beer about it, I got started. Cleaned it all off, re-graded it, leveled it out as best as I figured, and we're underway. This is where it got interesting.
After building a boat (I'll have to post a pic or two of that), three staircases (one was even a spiral), and a big stage platform, the neighbors were fairly sure that I'm nuts. This puts it over the top. They're quite sure now. I'm hauling bricks, dirt, sand, and all sorts of nonsense into the back yard. Then, oh yes, then, I start working on the smokehouse itself in the garage.
Stepping forward a little bit, and you can see that I couldn't just build a little smokehouse with maybe a tin roof. Oh no. This had to be full blown with even a cedar shingle roof. It's a sickness.
Here's inside the house. There are opposing rails on the walls with half circle cutouts in them. Those hold 1" dowel rod that I can either drape stuff like beef jerky across, hang stuff like salami, sausage, ham, etc, or I can put metal grates across them and put bacon, etc. on top of. In the back corner is the inside of the chimney stack. All of the interior wood is completely unfinished. Can't have anything like paint or stain messing up the meat!
I tried to get a shot of the smoke coming out of the chimney, but it's very elusive. Kind of like, well, smoke.
Here's what it looked like inside.
Here you can see some of the rods. I need to get a few more.
So far I've been doing drying and seasoning runs with no meat. I figure a few more to be sure that the bricks are fully dry, the wood has a nice patina, and I have a better idea of what I'm doing, then I'll be ready for a load of meat.
So the big question now is, do I do jerky first, or a big batch of bacon? Hmm... May have to have another beer and think about the one.
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