Smoking fish in the cold?

[dogman]

Hi guys,

I have been barbecuing and smoking for a good while. I can't remember when I bought my first Weber kettle grill but it was probably more than 30 years go. I had the full size ones and a few Smokey Joes over the years for barbecuing. For smoking I tried a few different offset smokers and found a local one I was happy with. I had a Brinkmann and while it was not perfect it was ok. I am thinking of getting the big WSM for smoking whole salmon and trout. I have a couple of questions I hope I can get the answers to here. I am in an apartment now so I will have to be smoking on the balcony.

1. I guess the WSM is similar to the Brinkmann in that they both have the dreaded water pot. I am going for the WSM this time because it's bigger but also mostly for the air control which looks like Weber avoided the airflow issues with the Brinkmann. The coal pan and vents look a lot better. I did some reading and I see a lot of folks are recommending lining the pot with tinfoil and leaving it empty. Has anybody tried throwing the wood blocks or chips in that bowl or is the consensus that they still work best in the coal pan?

2. It gets cold here, the winters have been kinda light lately but to avoid pissing off my neighbors during the summer when everybody has the windows open (no A/C here) I figured to try to do most of my smoking during the winter. I wanna say it's about freezing or a little below. Will the WSM keep a constant 225+ in these conditions. And by the way it is windy here a lot of the time like western Kansas.

3. If anybody who has the large size WSM could get me the actual grill dimensions (only the outside dimensions are listed on the Weber site as far as I could see) I would appreciate it. I get some good sized fish here and also some big fillets.

I will probably have more questions as I can think of them.

Thanks,

Dogman

[Walchit]

Western Kansas sucks! Eastern isn't much better.

I just bought an 18.5 and a 14.5
But I haven't had a chance to use them yet. I'm sure with the 3 intake vents you could close the ones that were pointed towards the wind and use the remaining vent to control temp. My buddy has a 22.5 and he loves it. Said that I'm gonna enjoy these wsms

[dogman]

Thanks, I just asked you this question in another thread because I saw you are in Topeka

Lemme know how you like your WSMs in your weather when you get to try 'em out. I'm thinking about smoking up a bunch of salmon this winter.

[Walchit]

Where are you at?

[dogman]

Czech Republic

[dogman]

...I'm sure with the 3 intake vents you could close the ones that were pointed towards the wind and use the remaining vent...

I should have responded to this before, sorry. This was some kind of test, right? We all know the wind where you're at and where I'm at doesn't come from one direction. It comes from *all* directions! :p

Three vents to the wind, bud!

[Walchit]

Idk topeka is kinda in the valleys. I haven't used either of my wsms because its been raining almost every day. I should have done something yesterday. I've only smoked on my leaky char-griller kettle, so I'm hoping the Smokey mountain will be a piece of cake.

Just put some meat on there! I use a cheap digital thermometer I got at Wal-Mart shoved through a piece of potato or onion to get a grate temperature.

Take some pics and post em up when you cook something

[dogman]

Oh man. I hate rain. It was drizzling here the last coupla days like it was Seattle. Today it dried out a bit and I put together a big-ass Keter box for some patio furniture and coal.

Will be ordering the grill hopefully tonight! Found the color I wanted on sale. I'll post pics when it shows up, hopefully Wednesday.

I'll be looking forwards to your WSM pics too

[harry45121]

As another writer has stated, there are two types of smoking. Hot-smoking is essentially cooking the fish in the presence of smoke. In that case, the smoke is used as a flavorant, while the heat acts as the main preservation/cooking method. The heat denatures proteins in the fish which make the structure more rigid, and primarily by the same action, denatures proteins in bacterial and fungal cells/spores making it safe to eat. Cold smoking is also used to preserve meats, including fish, and in that instance compounds present in the smoke adhere to the outer surface of the fish. These compounds have antimicrobial and antioxidant properties which lower the surface microbial load on the fish and prevents oxidation of fats which leads to rancidity/spoilage. Cold-smoked meats are often heavily salted and extensively dried during the smoking process. Both of these serve to reduce the water activity in the product. Water activity is a measure of the availability of water for chemical reactions, including those used for microbial metabolism. Therefore, salting and smoking, which reduces the water activity of the product, limit the amount of water which is available to grow spoilage organisms. The food is much more inhospitable to microbial growth and spoilage and is thus able to be stored for longer periods.

[HoosierKettle]

My grill area isn't particularly windy but we do get a fair amount of windy below freezing weather. My 18 will hold temp when it's cold out. I don't know about the 22 cold weather performance. Hopefully somebody will chime in that has one.


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