Cold smoke generators offer you the opportunity to prepare your own smoked cheese, bacon or fish on your regular grill. This simple BBQ accessory opens up a whole new world of outdoor cooking. Here are 5 of the best smoke cold generators to help you crank up the smoke!
Getting a cold smoker is the best way to recreate traditional cold smoking on your regular charcoal or pellet grill.
Today we’re going to show you 5 of the best cold smoke generators and show you everything you need to know to get the most out of them.
Your search for your next grilling and smoking accessory starts here.
At a glance: our top picks
With the amount of stuff I keep saying about grilling in these places, you would be forgiven for thinking that outdoor cooking is only possible with the help of fire.
And in most cases it is. From grilling to smoking, most forms of our favorite pastime involve subjecting meat to high temperatures to give us that smoky, charred flavor we all know and love so well.
But it’s far from the only way to prepare food.
Cold smoking has a rich history in outdoor cooking and is a great way to lock in flavors and textures that many other methods can’t reproduce. That’s why nothing beats cold- smoked salmon or smoked cheese.
If you’re looking for a new way to try outdoor cooking, you’ve come to the right place. Cold smoking could be your new favorite way to cook meat.
Let’s get into that!
Smokehouse Smoke Chief
The Shomehouse Smoke Chief immediately catches the eye at first glance.
It comes in the form of a modern looking accessory that looks like a firebox of its own. This is a huge improvement over the simple pellet tubes or smoke boxes of yore.
A price was. That has the power to boot.
Grill smoking is now firmly in the convenience age and this Cold Smoke Generator offers just that.
It is electronically operated and can be powered by a plug or even batteries. This makes it ideal for use at home or on the go.
It is clearly designed to be as flexible as possible and can be used in almost any smoker grill chamber, including pellet grills.
It works with wood pellets and can work about 3 hours with one cup. It’s incredibly efficient, even compared to simple smoker boxes or regular charcoal grills.
Inside is a heating element that smolders the pellets and maintains a slow, steady flow of smoke throughout the runtime.
It is a very easy device to use, so no lighter or starter is required. It can be started up quickly and is reliable enough to run for several hours.
Quite simply the best cold smoke generator available today.
Smoke Daddy Big Kahuna
This Big Name, Big Power Smoke Daddy Generator is capable of producing impressive amounts of smoke with little effort.
It can be used for both hot and cold smoking, making it such a powerful little firebox.
It has adjustable airflow settings so it’s important to know what you want out of your smoke, but if you’re a seasoned pro you’ll love the learning curve that comes with this box.
It’s not as portable as other smoke generators and you have to attach it to your smoker.
Amaze-N Pellet Tube Smoker
This is a much simpler model compared to others on this list. It’s not electronic, doesn’t need to be plugged into anywhere, and doesn’t have high-tech fans or flow systems.
Instead, all you have to do is fill your little chamber with wood pellets and turn it on. Your smoke will then flow through your vent holes, slowly adding smoke to your food.
Some people might worry about how easy this might be compared to other models; However, this makes it really easy to use, portable and doesn’t require you to start drilling holes in existing smokers.
Because of its small size, it can probably only cold smoke a relatively small amount of food, and it can burn faster before you need to refill(about 4 hours). However, I think it WILL be enough for dying users in most cases.
Amaze-N Sawdust Maze
This is another much model, although its maze-like appearance is definitive, to say the least!
However, this is more than just a trick. Its more elaborate design actually means it burns longer and produces a more even flow of smoke.
It has enough capacity to hold a large amount of wood dust and has an average smoking time of around 8 hours. This is really impressive given its analog design compared to its digital counterparts.
Nak Cold Smoke Generator
Rounding out my list is this brilliant budget choice from Nak.
Featuring a different maze-like design, it light at one end and slowly burn the chips toward the center.
Despite its modest price, it can run for an impressive 7 hours and is compatible with almost any smoker design.
It doesn’t have its own built-in fan, so you need to make sure the airflow in your smoker is good. You also need to make sure the wood chips are perfectly dry as there is no dedicated electrical system to ensure the wood is burning at all times.
What is cold roast?
Cold smoking is a traditional means of preserving food to make it last longer. Widespread before the invention of the freezer or refrigerator, it was used to keep certain types of meat from spoiling too quickly.
And at a time when we needed to store food to survive, learning the technique was literally the difference between life and death.
It has also emerged as a way to add extra flavor to meatless foods. Check out my guide to smoking cheese for more information.
The process involves low-temperature burning very close to the meat to aid in smoke development. This smoke helps dry the food, but the goal isn’t to transfer the heat itself.
The meat is usually hung, often on hooks, to expose all surfaces of the meat to the smoke. The smoke is then given several hours, or sometimes days, to permeate and permeate the flesh.
One of the reasons it works so well is that it helps dry out the meat when exposed to cold smoke, reducing the effects of bacteria on the meat.
Not only that, it tastes fantastic too. If you’ve ever smoked salmon or ham, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
The long smoke exposure allows the smoky flavors to seep into almost every layer of the meat and lock in.
Over time, people have developed the ability to use different types of chambers and woods to further enhance the flavors.
What is a cold smoke generator?
Cold smokers are accessories that use wood to produce cold smoke instead of the combustion chamber that comes with your standard charcoal or pellet grill.
These can come in two forms. Some are accessories that introduce cold smoke into the cookbox. Others are simple little boxes that create smoke when sitting on your cooking grates.
Cold smoked vs. hot smoked
I think there’s a lot of confusion here at times because the two approaches sound like they should be the same in sign, with temperature being the key factor separating them.
However, this is not necessarily true.
Hot smoking is a cooking method while cold smoking is a preservation method.
With hot smoking, we see that the embers and wood chips are much closer to the food, allowing the food to be cooked at around 225°F for a few hours.
In contrast, cold smoking not only has a much lower average temperature(often around 26-28°C), but also places the smoke source much farther from the meat.
The best woods for cold smoking
While all wood can produce smoke, not all wood is suitable for smoking meat.
If YOU choose the wrong wood, it can mask the flavor of your meat and even make it inedible.
Hardwoods are the perfect choice for smoking meat and come in a variety of types and flavors. For example apple, cherry and mesquite wood.
All of these can be used for cold smoking, but what should help you decide is what meat to cook. Different types of wood suit different types of meat differently, so first decide what you want to cold smoke before deciding on wood.
For example, pairs of pork much better with sweet, fruity woods like apple, while pairs of beef best with richer, earthier woods like mesquite and hickory.
Another important consideration is the use of wood, which works best as hot coals or for smoldering. This generally means we prefer wood pellets over large logs or chips, which tend to burn much hotter and shorter.
Writer & content creator. BBQ fanatic!
