A Cold Smoke Generator is a maze made of fine metal mesh that you fill with smoking dust. You light it at one end, after which the dust smoulders slowly through the channels and releases smoke for hours on end. It barely adds any heat, and that's exactly the point: cheese shouldn't melt and salmon shouldn't cook. You place it at the bottom of your kamado, in a closed barbecue or in a smoking cabinet, put your product on the grate and leave it alone.
What you make with a Cold Smoke Generator
Cold smoking is a different discipline from grilling. You're not changing texture, you're adding flavour. Classics are cheese, salmon, butter, salt, nuts and dried sausage. Because no heat is involved, this is also the season your barbecue would otherwise stand idle: a cold, dry day in autumn is even better than a warm summer evening.
- Keeps smoking for hours on one fill of smoking dust
- Adds almost no heat, so cheese stays intact
- Works in a kamado, a closed barbecue or a smoking cabinet
- Needs no power and no connection
- Usable in the cold season, when the grill would sit idle anyway
How to use it
Fill the maze with dry smoking dust, press it in lightly without packing it, and light one end with a candle or a lighter until it's properly glowing. Let the flame go out and place the generator at the bottom of your barbecue. Keep the air supply open just a crack: without draft the dust goes out. Your product sits on the grate, far enough from the generator.
What to watch for
Use smoking dust, not chips or chunks: those are too coarse and fall apart in the channels. Make sure the dust is properly dry, since moisture is the most common reason a generator goes out halfway through.
Find the matching smoking dust in the smoking wood category, which also carries the wood chips for hot smoking. Find other tools for your sessions in the BBQ tools.
