Hello Gang,
 
I spent the past few hours reading the Bee-L archives
regarding smoker fuel. Contained there is everything I did want
to know and a lot of what I did not want to know about
smoker fuel. It is amazing to me what some folks will
put into a smoker and then expose the smoke to food,
(honey).
 
I heard about a local fellow who owns a lot of hives, and uses what
anyone would recognize as a highly toxic substance for smoker
fuel.He bragged about how long his smoker stays lit, and about
the large amounts of smoke it puts out.
 
(No, I will not name the fellow or the substance.)
 
This is a classic example of recognizing a good beekeeper,
by what he knows and does,and not by the number of hives that he owns.
 
What I really want to talk about is a chimney for smokers.
 
I have been playing around with my smoker using pine needles
for fuel and trying to get a long burning time as well as
a lot of smoke. I found that by using a chimney in the center
of the smoker, it will stay lit, and produce a lot of smoke,
all without continual squeezing the bellows.
 
I got it to burn for 6 hours using the following combination.
(This is a 7 inch burning chamber), a large smoker would last much
longer.
 
Fuel: pine needles,
 
Starter: pine cones,
 
Coals: survey stakes made of oak, cut into 1 inch square chunks.
 
Chimney: cardboard, from a roll of gift wrapping paper.
 
         a chimney made of hardware cloth,1/4 inch mesh, worked
         well too. Wrap the hardware cloth around a broom stick
         to form a chimney about 3/4" in diameter and about an
         inch short of the top of the smoker inner burning chamber.
 
Light the pine cones and put them in upside down,
( they burn better that way ).
Leave the cover open, use 3 or 4 cones,
and place the chunks of oak on top of the burning cones.
Squeeze the bellows until the flame leaps out about a foot high.
(Wear gloves,)
 
When the chunks are blackened,with almost no pine cones left,
place the chimney into the center of the smoker,
on top of the chucks which are by now at the bottom
of the smoker.
 
Stuff pine needles all around the chimney, packing it in as much
as you possibly can. Jam it in good. Give it a few puffs to get
the pine needles going and you are done.
You will not have to touch the smoker for hours if need be.
 
 
Everything except the hardware cloth was free.
 
Survey stakes can be had for the asking from paving companies
who use them only once due to writing direction to the paving
crew on them. I raked a years worth of pine needels in an
afternoon at a neighbors house and he was glad to get rid
of them. Got the pine cones there too.
 
de AA1IK,
 
Ernie Gregoire
 
R.R. 1, Box 221,
South Rd.
Canaan, NH. 03741 USA
 
43.6170 N, X 72.0225 W
E-mail address: [log in to unmask]
 
 
 
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11/21/98 15:22:26