Smoker Generator – Smoke Daddy
If your the kinda guy that goes all-in, a smoker generator will be the way to go.
It works by having a cylinder filled with wood attached to a pump. You get a little bit of smoldering going, then adjust the dial to your desired smoke.
My one is a bit different, but the principles are the same. I used a metal spring with some plumbers tape to create an interface to the grill area.
Or you can just drill a hole and use a bolt and screw to lock the smoker generator to the side of your pellet grill.
Using stainless steel fender holders are the way to you. Which will plug the hole when you’re not using the smoke generator.
From about 1 min mark in, it starts to get into good detail about this mod.
You have a variable dial to increase or decrease the airflow therefore the smoke as you can see.
Big plus plus’s of this:
- Once running, easy operation, just like a pellet grill!
- Use for smoke boost or cold smoking if you want
- Use many different shapes/sizes of wood ie. pellets, chunks, chips
Smoke Daddy is a family company and the gear is solid hence why it comes in at $100-200. Dependent on size.
Smoke Daddy has a range of sizes, the one I really love is this Big Kahuna from Smoke Daddy on Amazon.
Pellet Tube & Maze Smokers
I have used this style of smoker for many things, these little devices are superb:
- Cold Smoking – salami, bacon, cheese, dairy (cream!), even salt
- Searing some chunky meat on the grill, adding smoke flavor to gas grilling action
- Indirect Smoke on Gas Grill for low & slow smoking
- Take the smoker to friends and smoke in their smokehouses or any makeshift box with some workflow, easy (for a party, easy to smoke some cheese for instance)
- Easy to add extra smoker to an electric or pellet grill to give it a smoke flavored boost
Chambers you could use for a pellet tube, smoke generator or maze smoker:
- Traditional smoking box
- Grill barbecue
- Cardboard box
- Smokehouse
- Wine barrel (hang stuff)
- Old Fridge
- So many options can be had for these!
Pellet Tube Smokers
You Need a decent flame to get it going, once it starts to glow – 5-7 mins burning vertically, then you just place it in your smoke area – so easy!
Even though it says pellet, I mix wood chips in with the pellets and it burns fine for 3-5 hours (12-inch tube)
A few times I haven’t had a decent torch burner light, so I used a camp burner (got to be a bit careful using a camp cooker!) or one of the burners on the gas BBQ.
Because I will often be doing cold smoked bacon for 2 to 3, 4-5 hour sessions, I don’t want too much smoke. So if I feel there is too much smoke happening, I just offset the pellet tube to not let all the smoke go up through the smoking area. (If you want to control the smoke more effectively for cold smoking, then a smoke generator is the way to go). Or another option is to just open the door a bit (if you have one).
Even though the design is super simple, here are some tips I have learned.
- Get one with a flat side so it sits firm and doesn’t roll around
- 12″ length, 6” may only give 2 maybe 3 hours of smoke or less go for cheeses, dairy and vege smoking more so
I heard a perforated baffle for a motorbike exhaust can be re-engineered, all I could find locally was car baffles, which were very hard strong metal. A bit of an overkill compared to 304 stainless I think.
So here are a few links to Amazon pellet tubes worth getting. (Note I get a small commission on purchases, it doesn’t cost you anything – but supports the site)
- Polygon 12 inch Pellet Tube(what I have)
- Square 12 inch Pellet Tube (classic)
Maze Smokers (Same Same
Maze Smokers (Same Same but Different)
Really cool devices also, they just burn through either pellet or sawdust. Can mix them up too.
- Burns for a long time up to 8 hours
- small and portable
- When you get it burning nicely, another set & forget smoker
- Use it on a gas grill as a supplement smoker or for indirect low & slow
You will get longer smoking sessions, so these are great for cold smoking for Central & Eastern European strong smokey cured meat or classic cold smoked dry-cured bacon.
These guys have been the standard for a long time, check out the huge amount of positive reviews for the A-MAZE-N Maze smoker here.
If you want a bit more detail on the pellet tube smoking, I wrote a bit more about them in this post below.