Smokehouse from a washing machine, how to make it quickly and easily

You can talk about the benefits or harms of smoked products for quite a long time. But it is a fact that the unique taste of smoked meats and the aromatic smell of smoke have won the hearts of even avid gourmets. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to enjoy your favorite delicacies.

Firstly, the store sells products smoked with liquid smoke, and a true connoisseur will easily feel the difference in taste.
Secondly, smoked products are quite expensive and are not always available to the average user.
Thirdly, to carry out real smoking, you need to travel out of town or have a private home, and a purchased smokehouse is quite expensive.

There are several of the most trivial ways to make smokehouses with your own hands. At the same time, the quality of the product will always be at a high level, and its cost is negligible compared to the cost of store-bought smoked meats. Today we are interested in a smokehouse from a washing machine, and not so much in the algorithm (after all, there can be a huge number of them), but in the basic principles for realizing your own imagination. Therefore, first we will analyze the principles of smoking in order to understand what functions our device should have.

The essence of cold and hot smoking

Smoking is the process of treating a product with cold or hot smoke. As a result of this process, some chemical reactions occur. Some of them (protein denaturation, fat oxidation, fiber breakdown) can change the structure of the product. In addition, smoke is a good preservative, as it kills microorganisms in the fibers.

Cold smoking takes place at a temperature of 25-27°C degrees. This procedure is quite complex, as it requires compliance with many parameters. For cold smoking, the product must be properly soaked and dried. There are also requirements for the smokehouse; it must maintain a strictly defined temperature, and for quite a long time.
Hot smoking is considered easier. Many homemade smokehouses allow you to prepare hot smoked dishes. Firstly, due to the high temperature (90-120°C degrees), all soaking flaws are compensated. Secondly, the temperature regime has a wide range, which greatly facilitates the task of maintaining it. Preparing a smokehouse for hot smoking is not that difficult.

Features of operation

Among the common problems, 2 stand out: too strong a fire flame leads to food spoilage, fat leaks interfere with the normal functioning of the device. The first trouble can be smoothed out only by continuously monitoring the fire; in extreme cases, you can install an electric spiral. The second phenomenon requires a more serious approach.

The drum usually has an oblique configuration, that is, its top and bottom edges are not parallel. Therefore, during smoking, the fat from the products does not flow straight down (directly onto the tray), but ends up on the sawdust, which violates the technology for preparing delicacies. The solution is to create a screw support, thanks to which the container will be leveled. As an alternative, you can make a makeshift grease trap.

A homemade design for hot smoking will be a cheap, but no less effective replacement for a factory unit. The duration of exposure is determined by the type of product: meat requires more than an hour, fish and chicken will be ready in 40 minutes. The advantages of the home model are versatility, efficiency and mobility.

Basic recommendations for use boil down to the fact that you need to monitor the smoking process and, in general, not leave the active unit unattended. If you follow culinary instructions, the final product will be delicious dishes, and users can be confident in their natural processing, the absence of chemical additives and the freshness of the original products. It is only important to monitor the temperature and choose the right sawdust.

Smokehouse device

A smokehouse is a container into which meat, fish, poultry and other products are placed. Semi-finished products are laid out on special sieves or hung on hooks. The basis for the smoke is sawdust or finely chopped wood chips. If wood is heated, it will begin to smolder, emitting smoke.

The main task is to prevent fire.

Heat the sawdust over a fire or using an electric heater. A tray is usually installed under the sieves to collect the fat that will be released during smoking. If fat gets on the wood chips, the smoked meats will have a bitter taste.

A cold smoked smokehouse is different in that the smoke must cool before entering the container with the food. The only possible way to do this is to build a long chimney in which the smoke would lose its temperature. It is important to calculate the length of the chimney in order to be able to accurately set the temperature.

Useful video

Watch a video that demonstrates the process of making a smokehouse from a washing machine tank.

Firstly, the store sells products smoked with liquid smoke, and a true connoisseur will easily feel the difference in taste.
Secondly, smoked products are quite expensive and are not always available to the average user.
Thirdly, to carry out real smoking, you need to travel out of town or have a private home, and a purchased smokehouse is quite expensive.

Tool preparation

The list of available tools for each master may be different, so it is impossible to create a single list. It all depends on what kind of base you need to use for the smokehouse. Smoking from a washing machine can be done with a minimum amount of manipulation. But it all depends on the model and type of device used. We will try to give at least an approximate list of tools:

welding machine;
Bulgarian;
screwdriver;
hammer;
drill;
pliers.

A smokehouse can be made from any old washing machine, no matter what type of load it has.

If you use the popular Oka, then the tank will be used. For those who have a horizontal loading washing machine at their dacha, a model that uses a drum is suitable. An automatic machine with vertical loading can also be used. If desired, you can make an electric smokehouse. But for this you will need a “dry” heating element. With some ingenuity, everyone will find a suitable material to construct gratings.

We use a top-loading machine

Surely most of the readers still remember the good old Oka; this activator-type machine was in almost every Soviet family. First you need to rid the unit of all attachments, including the electric motor. All holes that are on the bottom must be sealed, as smoke will escape from the tank through them.

If you have the skill to work with a welding machine, then this task will not be a problem. To cover the place where the activator is inserted, a patch of larger diameter is cut out of stainless steel and welded to the bottom. If you don’t have welding at hand, you will have to cover each hole with small patches, planted using cold welding.

The result is a smokehouse design in which the bottom is raised above the ground, since the tank in the washing machine is located at this level. A hole should be made in the lower part of the body through which firewood will subsequently be placed.

Further actions depend on the imagination of the master. It is necessary to create conditions for placing products in the smokehouse; these can be hooks or sieves. Sieves are considered more versatile, since small pieces (for example, fruit or small fish) can be laid out on them. The lower grill should be located approximately 40 cm from the bottom. If it is lower, the temperature in this area will be excessively high, and the product will be baked without being saturated with smoke.

The second grille can be mounted immediately above the first. Two grilles will double the productivity of the device. Shelves from an old refrigerator are suitable as sieves. Otherwise, you will have to make them yourself, welding metal rods together.

Our smokehouse from a washing machine works as follows.

The fire is made directly on the ground, you can even make a small depression.
While the wood is burning, you need to prepare the smokehouse. Sawdust or wood chips are poured onto the bottom of the tank, and a grease tray is placed on top. You can even make one out of aluminum foil. The sieves are installed using the technology you invented, and the product is laid out on them.
The smokehouse is covered first with a cloth and then with a lid to minimize the amount of smoke coming out.
Then the entire smokehouse is placed so that the fire is at the bottom. Through the hole made, the intensity of combustion can be adjusted.

Independent production of additional components

For ease of operation of the smokehouse, grates and a tray should be provided. The optimal solution could be a barbecue grill - it is made of high-quality metal and has a round shape. If there is no ready-made option, you can make a stand for food with your own hands:

you need to assemble a round frame from steel tape; stainless steel can be replaced with thick wire in several layers;
You need to attach pieces of wire to the base so that you get a mesh fabric with medium-sized cells.

It is worth making 2 grates at once, welding the fastenings for them at a distance of 20-25 cm from each other inside the tank.

The working container must be closed with a lid; if it was not provided or was simply not included in the washing machine, it can be made from a stainless steel sheet. It is desirable that the thickness of the material be 3-4 mm, otherwise the thin cap will shake during heating, and the thick one will be heavy and inconvenient to use.

The lid must match the diameter and shape of the top of the tank. Handles made of thick wire or fittings need to be welded to it on both sides.

Typically the drum has a slanted bottom, allowing water to be drained without leaving any residue. The body itself will not stand straight, it will begin to fall on its side. To eliminate this problem, the easiest way is to equip the edge of the tank with three support protrusions. They are made of metal plates with a thickness of 1 mm. If you mentally connect them, you should get an isosceles triangle.

The stability of the unit is ensured by legs assembled from any strong base adapted to the weight of the structure.

Electric smokehouse from a washing machine

The need for constant control of the flame prompts inventors to think about creating an electric smokehouse. Let's take as a basis a smokehouse that was made according to the algorithm described above. The heating element will be a “dry” heating element (does not require immersion in water). Its power should be approximately 1 kW.

The main task of the designer is to secure this element under the bottom of the tank.

The electrical spiral must be insulated with ceramic felt, and it is useful to reinforce the bottom of the tank with another stainless steel sheet, which will prevent the metal from burning through. The hatch at the bottom of the body does not need to be cut out, since it served only for storing firewood. A small hole can be made for the power wire.

This smokehouse works according to a well-known scheme. First, wood chips are poured in, and then the heater is turned on. Some experts advise wrapping the body of the smokehouse with some kind of thermal insulator so as not to waste extra electricity.

Drum smokehouse

Automatic washing machines used cylindrical drums. They are also installed on modern machines, both with horizontal and vertical loading. Making a smokehouse from a washing machine drum is even easier than from a tank. This drum from a top-loading machine already has a door through which sawdust will be poured or food will be placed.

But the drum has many holes; to close them, it is necessary to cut a sheet of metal with a shape and area equal to the side surface of the drum. This sheet is wrapped around the cylinder, and the sheet is secured with bolts or welding.

Despite the fact that the cylinder must be closed, it is advisable to make a lid at one end that can always be removed. With such a cover, a hatch in the side surface is not needed. There are many ways to implement the idea, but it lies in the fact that sawdust is poured onto one base of the cylinder and the smokehouse is installed on the grill.

It is possible to make an electric smokehouse if the heating element is placed under the bottom. It must be protected by making the smokehouse legs or a stand. If you wish, you can find many drawings for a homemade smokehouse, but using a ready-made washing machine simplifies the task. As we have already seen, not many design changes are made to the device, so anyone can do this work.

Conclusion

Before throwing away an outdated car, it is worth inspecting all working parts - they may come in handy. Not only smokehouses, but also decorative items are made from the drum of a washing machine.

A laundry tank or parts from a centrifuge are widely used in smoking; they even combine the design of two tanks for greater capacity. Since making a smokehouse with your own hands is quick and inexpensive, any metal containers can be used, and the finished products are not inferior in quality to branded ones. The Soviet round washing machine makes the most convenient and durable units, and the drum makes the most compact.

An old or broken washing machine can still serve its owner . But from a different perspective.

from the core - the tank .

Therefore, there is an opportunity to surprise both yourself and your loved ones with juicy smoked dishes.