The new smoker.

Lewisburg.

It took long enough, but I finally have a serious smoker. No more of those cardboard box shenanigans!¹

It still looks like a half-assed high school steampunk disaster, though:


Never mind that. It works, and works reliably, and if it didn't weigh a ton, it'd be perfect. A firebox, made from food-grade aluminum², holds a two-burner propane camp stove, each of which has its own cast-iron smoker box to hold the necessary wood chips and sawdust. The heat draws in plenty of oxygen from the apertures at the base, exiting out the duct at the top.

Then it's into the food box:


Even split into three separate pieces, this sucker's still heavy. Solid. Imposing to move in and out of the basement.

The base is where the smoke enters, and I can rig this up to include trays of ice for colder smoking, if necessary. Today, after three hours of smoking, it was a mere 150°F inside, which suggests to me that I've got good flexibility in temperature control. Come autumn, cooler temperatures will be much easier to achieve.

The central piece holds the racks for smoked items, as well as rods to hang sausages from. The whole front panel is a door that swings open, with a small window near the top to peek in. Atop that is a two-panel roof that can be opened as much as necessary to get good airflow.



Today's test run included some honey-cured bacon and a block of tofu. Really, once you've got it going, you might as well toss in what's at hand. If I'd had my act together, I'm sure I could have packed it full. Kamozawa and Talbot's Ideas in Food is full of suggestions to get things started. I'm already looking forward to smoked tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, apples, and pears, in addition to cured meats and sausages. And, undoubtedly, plenty more.

* * * * *

¹Actually, the cardboard box setup was pretty sweet, especially for a tiny apartment. If it weren't so finicky, and prone to waterproofing / wind resistance / flammability concerns, it might still be around.

²Read: Inexpensive sheet pans from a restaurant supply store. Trimmed, riveted together, and sealed with fireplace mortar.

Mid-June harvest.

Lewisburg.

From a spring both cold and unfailingly wet, the weather has surged into the heat of high summer. Mostly dry, too, though the past few days have brought more than two inches of rain, primarily from thunderstorms. Some of the plants are thrilled, including the hops that have overwhelmed their supports, knotting into a fury of bines, leaves, and budding little cones:


The radishes have been less enthused, racing to bolt before we could pull more than a handful to eat. Still, the seedpods ought to be good for a stir-fry or two:


The rest of the deck planters are humming along nicely, providing a handy little salad bar just a few steps from the kitchen:


With sweet salad turnips, too:


These Hakurei turnips are tough to beat. Sweet, tender, and quick-growing, they've got delicious roots and leaves. The only bits we don't use are the tip of the root and the short section between trimming the root top and the base of the leaves.

We've also harvested a bunch of broccoli raab, which has grown enormously in the past week:


Also lettuces that are threatening to bolt any minute:


Kohlrabi with pristine leaves, thanks to plenty of rowcover:


And we've also started into our peas for this season:


The wet spring delayed planting, and this hotter-than-average weather means they'll likely be a brief treat this year. But at least we get some. The small local farms have, for the most part, skipped peas this year, since they couldn't get them in the ground in time.

On the upside, we've got plenty of purslane - it's having a banner year - which, as far as garden weeds go, is tough to get upset about. And the garlic scapes were too good to resist this morning, so they'll be a treat for as long as they last. Add some fresh strawberries to that, and it's becoming unclear how all of this is possibly going to fit into the refrigerator.

The garden, in pictures, despite the lack of greenery.

Lewisburg.

It's not much to look at, but there's plenty of garden on its way. June arrived with fierce, hot weather - now tempered - and most everything's in the ground and growing.

Winter squash, melons, watermelon:


Pole beans, bush beans, lima beans:


Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant (yet to transplant):


Onions, leeks, garlic:


Potatoes:


Peas, soybeans, carrots, parsnips, fennel, poppies:


Tomatoes, tomatillos, summer squash, bitter melon:


Kohlrabi, broccoli raab, napa cabbage, lettuce, flowers galore:


And a mashup panorama of the whole thing:


Click on it for a better view - or at least as big an image as Flickr will handle. You get the gist of it.