hubby wants to build a wood smoker for salmon. anyone have plans or blueprints for such an animal. We have been catching some nice kings on the sacramento river, my best so far this season is a 41# buck. Nice bright fish. Tough season for most, but size & quality of fish makes up for it.

a very simple way to start is to find a old refrigator cut a hole in the bottom and vent the top depending on on if your going to have a separate external smoke source already have the racks in it, never built one but i hear they work pretty good might ask somebody that has built one dont know all the petericularls

Weesey you might want to check into getting an old refrigerator myself and the guys I fish with have been useing the same one now for 27 years. They're very easy to make into a smoker and they can smoke more fish in one day then you can eat in a year.

Weesey, make sure the frig has a steel cabinet inside, no plastic, will melt with time onto some mighty fine eating and spoil the rest.

Look for old style frig's, go to applance repair's shop's, they get alot of old stuff that is no go the repair and is just scrap metal to them.

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elmtree (woody)

I didn't use an old fridge as they are just too hard to find and with the external heat source and such. I did build one out of 5/8" maple plywood that is: 3'h X 2"w X 17"d. I use standard oven racks that I scrounged and an 1,100 watt hot plate along with a 8" cast iron skillet for a chip pan. Also I used some 1" sq oak that was given too me for the rack runners. Just make sure you cut everything real tight so you don't have toooooooo much ventilation. A carpenter I am not! But I fixed my screw ups and it works great. Good luck and tight lines.

I have a old freezer which when combined with a hot plate works fine for a smoker. However, the freezer takes up a lot of space and is hard to move. I have gone to using the Big Chief by Lure Jensen for my smoking needs. Works fine, holds lots of fish, and is economical to run. For the cost and time spent in making a smoker I would highly recommend the Big Chief for ease. I still use my large freezer smoker for smoking turkeys, chickens, hams, and bacons which is not an option with the Big Chief.

I've used both styles of smoker's.Big cheif works great,but the old frid holds more.I'm going to build a smoker out of ply wood and use a small wood stove and burn alder in it.I find that natural smoked meats and fish seem to taste better to me when using fire wood style versus chips from a bag.But if you only smoke a few times a year the big cheif is my choice. STRIKE ZONE

Weezy,
Before you build a smoker out of wood, go get your racks first, (like the larger commercial oven racks) cheapest place to look for one would be a restaurant auction, then build your smoker to the rack size, you`ll find it
much easier than trying to find racks that fit a home-made smoker. make it .50" inches wider than the rack and then add 1.00" runners down each side for easy put-in and take-out. If you need more info just E-mail me

Check into the brinkman smokers they have many options,meat loaf racks,rib rack,turkey racks,chicken racks,BIG RECIPE BOOK, I think you get the idea. They say you can cook up to 50# pounds of meat at once. They have a customer service # 1 800 468 5252. This is the best smoker in my mind, if someone said other wise they haven't seen it yet. Call the number or go to K-Mart, Freddies. They have basic models there and they sell a water smoker and ca'jun cooker. They double as a grill too so you can toss out that old bar-b-que as well. J.C.B

I pickup a couple of alder rounds, use an ax to remove the bark, split the round into workable sections, then cut that up into pices 4" long, then hand chop my chunks. I susally soak my chips/chunks overnight so they smoke real good. drives the wife crazy as it sits on a covered deck and it smokes her and the neighborhood out!

We use to smoke lots of fish and burned out several old refrigerators in heat of battle . I have been using a local commercial smoker lately, but he just raised his prices to .75/lb!! Thats to dam much for what he does. I am going to have to make a new puff shack again. Great ideas and tips on your home smokers guys. The last fridge we used had lots of plastic and was a pain to get out. We use to cut down small alders or use fruit tree wood in a cast iron pan on a hotpad. Worked great except for the baby sitting so it was just right, cutting the trees, soaking the fish....hm maybe 75/lb isn't too much. Anybody seen a hotplate that has a built in timer? I suppose one of those automatic outlets that turn on and off that you use when taking trips would work. ideas?

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Marty
Steelheader.net marty@steelheader.net

Couple years ago,I help design and buid a smoker for a buddie he used a old fridge ,but insted of a hot plate we used a 30 gal drum cut in half placed on edge next to the smoker piped into the bottom as an indirect heat source it uses smoke only ,no heat took a weekend to build but man this thing rocks ...look at the brinkman they work great too for the money, buy the electric one not the charcoal model.

My wife would just me putting some ol' frig in the backyard to make a smoker. She can barely tolerate my fanatic fishing as it is.

Tight Lines

Paul

Paul
Add a nice brick barbecue with smoker attached. They can be as nice as you make them. But then again a old frig with flowers painted on it would be cool
Tight Lines

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Marty
Steelheader.net marty@steelheader.net