You love using your smoker in summer, and you’ve probably cursed the weather gods when winter rolls in. As outside temperatures plummet, your smoking fun meter drops proportionally by degrees. Your expensive cut of meat probably doesn’t render as well as it does in summer, and your smoking credentials become seriously compromised. Let’s fix that.
To effectively smoke meat outdoors in cold weather, the following needs to be achieved:
- Comprehensive insulation of the smoker chamber
- A strong fire with ample air intake
- More fuel on hand than in summer
- Optimum retention of heat at the desired temperature
- Good exhaust ventilation
- Clean smoke
Smoking is best done outdoors, so regardless of the type or quality of the smoker being used, cold weather will affect your fire and the thermal characteristics of your smoker chamber.
*This page contains affiliate links to products I recommend. If you purchase something from this page, I may receive a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.
Fluctuations in temperature aren’t good for the smoking process, and worse is not achieving and sustaining the correct smoking temperature. Follow these tips to gear your smoker for cold weather and achieve the same quality results from your smoker as you do when the weather’s warm.
The Best Ways Your Smoker Can Beat The Cold
Wintry weather is not only about low ambient temperatures. Your smoker will struggle to do its job when the weather is wet and windy too. By properly insulating and thermally treating your smoker chamber and firebox, you’ll keep the cold air out and the hot air in for the perfect smoke.
Irrespective of the quality or type of smoker you use, be it offset, pellet, kettle, bullet, vertical, wood, gas, or electric, you can improve your smoking efficiency by applying a few strategic weatherproofing measures.
- Achieving optimum smoke quality and sustained temperatures in your smoker chamber depend on how well you manage the fire and how well the chamber holds the heat.
Get your smoker fire, smoke, heat retention, and chamber insulation right, and you’re on your way to top-notch winter-busting cuts, racks, wings, and bellies.
Tip #1 – Understand How Cold Air Affects Your Smoker
Cold air moving around your smoker will cool the chamber and ruin your smoking experience. The heated chamber of the smoker is a low-pressure environment, while the cold ambient air outside the chamber is higher in pressure. According to the laws of thermodynamics, cold air displaces hot air.
Air travels from high to low-pressure zones, so despite the thickness of your chamber walls, cold air will move from the outside, through the steel, into the chamber, effectively cooling the air inside the chamber.
Cold air also creates different temperature zones in your smoker chamber as it interacts with the heat and smoke coming from the firebox. This makes it difficult to obtain consistent smoking temperatures throughout the chamber, resulting in uneven cooking and smoking.
Managing the thermal characteristics of your smoker in varying weather conditions will enable you to control the heat and smoke in the chamber more accurately.
Tip #2 Know Your Hot Spots
All pellet grills have hot spots. Ensure you know where yours are and use them effectively. Ensure you place the food in the hot spots, as this will help the food cook quicker.
Tip #3 – Seal The Smoker Chamber And Firebox
Several parts of a smoker can act as a heat breach. For example, the firebox and the chamber have lids and vents that may not sit snuggly with the smoker’s body, effectively allowing hot air and smoke to escape from the chamber and firebox, making the smoker less efficient than it could be.
Get a tube of high-temperature, weatherproof food-grade silicone sealant. Unscrew all detachable parts from the smoker that present the possibility for heat to escape. Then seal all the small holes on the smoker, including:
- The screw holes that secure the hinges of the lid on the smoker chamber and the firebox lid.
- The screw holes of the intake vent and chimney stack.
- The screw holes of the handles of the chamber and the firebox.
- The screw holes of the smoker’s legs.
Using the silicone sealant, create gasket-style seals around the smoker’s hinges, handles, and vents. Replace the detached parts immediately after applying the sealant.
The smoker chamber and firebox lids on most non-professional smokers have lids that don’t sit as snuggly as they could against the body of the chamber and firebox. Apply LavaLock Firebox Gasket Tape to the periphery of the inside of both lids.
Ensure a tight lid seal by fitting two Smoker Toggle Latches to the smoker chamber.
Tip #4 – Turbocharge Your Fire Management
Cold ambient temperatures will cool everything down. The steel your smoker is made of, and the wood, charcoal, and pellets used for fuel will all have a lower temperature before you start your fire than they do in summer, spring, or fall.
In essence, if you’re using a wood or charcoal fire, you’re starting your fire with a temperature handicap you need to mitigate. You will need:
- More fuel to compensate for the lower operating temperatures.
- A small leaf blower or hair dryer to inject air (oxygen) into the firebox when the fire starts to die (use only with lump charcoal and hardwood. Charcoal briquette ash will blow into the chamber).
Offset smokers require constant fire management (pellet, gas, and electric smokers less so), so make sure you’re dressed warmly.
Tip #5 – Insulate The Smoking Chamber With A Jacket
The exterior of the smoker chamber offers a large surface area for cold air to make contact with and lower your cooking temperature. Some smoker manufacturers supply made-to-fit thermal insulation jackets, but they’re expensive.
Save yourself some money. Get a welding blanket and tailor-make a thermal jacket to cover the smoker chamber when the weather turns icy.
Tip #6 – Add Thermal Mass
The cheaper the smoker, the thinner the steel it’s made from, and the less capable it is of maintaining heat generated by the fire.
Compensate for heat loss through thin steel by creating a heat-retaining heat sink on the floor of the smoker chamber using firebricks or ¼-inch steel plates. Ensure good baffle clearance to allow heat and smoke to circulate in the chamber.
Tip #7 – Make A V-Shaped Fire Basket
You will need to add hardwood to your offset smoker fire more frequently in cold weather. Getting the hardwood to burn cleanly is crucial.
- The cleaner the burn of the wood, the cleaner the smoke curing your meat.
Ensure the logs burn efficiently by using a V-shaped fire basket. You can make one easily by using thin steel mesh, an angle grinder, and a bending tool.
Tip #8 – Shelter Your Smoker From The Elements
If you’re smoking in the wind, rain, snow, or sleet, create a shelter for your extreme smoking adventure. All you need is protection from icy side winds and falling frozen H20.
With one solid exterior brick wall as a mounting point, you can erect a tarp roof (use a water-resistant welding blanket) and movable tarp sidewalls fastened to a PVC pipe or wood frame (secured in place using tent guy lines and stakes).
Tip #9 – Minimize Lid Opening Using A Wireless Thermometer
Significant temperature drops occur when you open the smoking chamber to inspect your meat. Therefore, opening the lid less often will significantly improve the chamber temperature consistency and smoking process.
By placing a (with its probe stuck into a potato or onion) inside the smoking chamber for the duration of the cook, you’ll be able to monitor the cooking temperature accurately. With precise temperature readings, you’ll have the necessary information to manage your fire more effectively without having to open the chamber lid.
Final Word
Just because the weather turns frosty and windy doesn’t mean you have to mothball your smoker. Instead, with these ten cost-effective and easy-to-implement cold-weather smoking tips, you can modify your smoker to ensure optimum insulation and fire efficiency in chilly winter weather.
You’ll not only save on your fuel costs, but you’ll create a premium-class low and slow smoking environment.
Related Articles
- How Do I Make My Pit Boss Heat Up Faster?
- 9 Tips for Using The Smoke Setting On a Pit Boss
- Why Is My Pit Boss Smoking So Much?
- What P Setting For Cold Weather?
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_(cooking)#Types_of_smokers