Hello from North Yorkshire

[Jonty]

Hi, my name is Jonty and I'm from Skipton, North Yorkshire. I've dabbled into barbeque for many years but have only really started applying some 'science' to it over the last year or two. I currently do most of my hot smoking on a very old char broil H20 smoker which I converted to gas.

As well as barbeque, I really enjoy cold smoking (converted oil drum) and curing meats. I also enjoy shooting and game fishing, anything I bag is for the pot so if I'm lucky, I get some super fresh produce to either grill, smoke or pickle!!

I've had a quick browse round and there looks to be a great information resource on here, I'm looking forward to getting stuck in and learning some stuff.

Cheers

[keith157]

Welcome and have fun.

[robgunby]

Hey Jonty

I'd love to hear more about your cold smoking rig (thinking of building a smoker myself, not decided whether to go hot, cold or something that can cope with both). Got any pics?

Also, I have a fresh (as in, uncured) leg of wild boar in my freezer waiting for an expert to give me some advice. I was thinking wet curing it with curing salt then a low n slow hot smoke, but I don't know where to start. Any pointers?

[Jonty]

Hi Rob,

my cold smoker is a 220l food grade oil drom with a couple of plumbing fittings for vents and some threaded bar struts to make supports for the racks. I use a cold somoke generator from macs BBQ which, with the wet up I've made, gives me between 12 and 16-7 hours smoke per fill. My hot smoker is very old and open bottomed and was therefore no good for cold smoking.

here it is





If you've got a decent air tight hot smoker you could probably get away with just buying a csg.

[robgunby]

The CSGs do seem a good investment, but unfortunately my smoker is a modified ECB, so very much open bottomed. Would it not suffice to put the CSG in the (empty) water pan?

[Jonty]

If it was fairly windless, probably. I found that any breeze just really upped the burn rate on the csg, it would glow embers and burn really quickly rather than smoulder. I think I read you have a good windbreak set up so you may be ok, it's just where I live it fair rattles round the garden.

With the csg though, you could smoke in anything, a mate uses a small water butt....

[robgunby]

I have an incinerator bin that might work, but I would need to add grates and whatnot, and of course it has many air vent holes so may not be any better than my ECB. I have a kettle grill too but it's quite small and wouldn't work for the big pieces I would want to cold smoke.

[Jonty]

Also, I have a fresh (as in, uncured) leg of wild boar in my freezer waiting for an expert to give me some advice. I was thinking wet curing it with curing salt then a low n slow hot smoke, but I don't know where to start. Any pointers?

Rob, just my take but if you use curing salts, you will tighten up the texture of the meat and end up with a smoked ham, which is fine if it's a ham you're after.

[robgunby]

I suppose that's the advice I'm after really Jonty, is this gonna taste better as a ham or as a leg of pork?

[Jonty]

I suppose that's the advice I'm after really Jonty, is this gonna taste better as a ham or as a leg of pork?

I think you're the only one who can answer that mate Personally if I had a leg of wild boar, I would want to taste it as pork first. The of course you get to do the comparison by doing a ham afterwards .