How Much are Cold Smokers? Easiest & Thrifty Equipment

It’s actually quite surprising how cheap a basic cold smoking setup is, There are some variables for cold smoking, generally, doing it at home is easy. Hopefully, I can highlight the best options depending on what you want to cold smoke and where you are at on the cold smoking journey.

I started cold smoking about 15 years ago, talking to a traditional Dutch butcher who got me interested. He started showing me all the bits and pieces, with his setup. It was quite a shock at how simple it was.

So I did a whole bunch of research on different types of cold smoking equipment. After reading a few books, it was crazy how simple it can be, a lot of people think it’s something way more complicated then it is.

How Much are Cold Smokers? The simplest setup can cost under $20 USD. This will basically just hold wood to burn slowly. More complex adjustable cold smoke systems cost approximately $80-$150 USD. A Smokehouse building can cost $200 or more to design a wood structure for cold smoking.

You can even make your own cold smoke system incredibly simple, just like the Dutch butcher I mentioned. He had that large steel double door container, then he lit and left. It was through decades of trial and error why this worked for him. Most designs incorporate a different burning box to the smoke chamber area, so make sure the temperature is below 30°C/86°F to avoid cooking the meat.

On the important aspect of cold smoking that is often overlooked is having high enough humidity, especially cold smoking meat. This post is about cost, if you want the full rundown beginner’s guide to cold smoking, I wrote a post here.

Here is a list from the thifty option to just try it out, to the smokehouse, for cold smoking any food.

Cold Smoking Setup – Cheapest First

The Simple Cold Smoking Setups

• Sieve Method – simplest, a bit of trial and error
• Pellet Tube – simple, same principle as Sieve
• Maze Cold Smoker

Adjustable Mid Range Cold Smokers

• Smoke Generator

Permanent Cold Smoker Structure

• Smokehouse

What you Need to Successfully Cold Smoke

When it comes to non-meat smoking ie. for cheese, chocolate or any other diary, you really just want cold smoke for 30 – 90 mins in my experience and 10-20°C/50-68°F. Going past this can mean too much smokey flavor leads to bitterness I find.

Simple Setups

Just a quick note, that I have played around with using these simple setups as hot smoking or low and slow DIY setups, since hot smoking is just cooking with some form of thin blue smoke, temperature control being the key to success with various methods.

Sieve Method Cold Smoker- Simplest

Cost $5 approx.

Buy sieve, push it inside out and you have a DIY cold smoker. I friend does this and it works great, I will take a picture of it and post it. But here is a crude drawing:

You place the sawdust/wood pellets around the donut area. The smoke gets plenty of oxygen from the holes in the sieve. All you need is an enclosure with a bit of air flow. So easy!

Having some form of decent lighter to get it going is important, like a creme brulee torch or a butane torch burner like picture below.

Pellet Tube Cold Smoker – simple, same principle as Sieve

$20 Approx

One of my favorites, you can get normally 6-12 inches. There are a few that have extendable aspects to them as well.

Getting the tube (or maze) lit is the only bit to really master. You need a propane torch (creme brulee torch works well) to get things started after 30-60 secs of direct torching. You just let it burn for at least 6 mins and blow it out. I wrote some info on pellet tube I like, check out that page here.

Don’t even bother trying to get it lit with a normal everyday lighter, you need a torch for a blue flame type of heat.

They are also the same as a motorbike perforated exhaust baffles that look like this:

Maze Cold Smoker

$30 Approx

Similar to the above methods, this type of cold smoker I find definitely can have a longer burn time, so great for the cold smoked bacon. If you can get plenty of good smoking sawdust, this can be the business. However, there are some that are designed for pellet burning also.

Depending on the wood, you can get a much longer burn out of it. Cherry wood seems to have a longer burn then a lot of the other fruit woods.

Versatile, though you may have to play around a bit with placement if you are using it for low and slow or in a cooking/smoking environment for a few reasons.

1. Pellet can ignite on a grill
2. Some propane smoker or BBQ gas grill’s may not provide adequate oxygen to keep the maze smoker going.

I go into a bit of detail about these types of smokers, check out some tips and recommendations here.

Smoke Generator

$120 approx

These are really cool devices, they use the so-called ‘Venturi’ effect, which pulls the smoke through the device.

You have a variable controller with the air pump, so you can adjust the flow of cold smoke being pushed through.

You use a torch just like the other methods to get it going. But since there is some ‘draw’ from the pump, it is easier to get lit. I have used normal lighters, but it takes quite a bit longer – don’t even bother if it’s windy.

They normally come with a drill bit, so you can make a whole if needed. I did this for a old kettle grill, then attached it for cold smoking.

If you want a full rundown with the pros and cons, I wrote a page here on these.

Full Cold Smoking Smokehouse

$200+ approx.

There are so many ways you could put together a smokehouse the basic way is having a smouldering fire going in a different tunnelled area, then the ‘cold’ smoke just drifts through into the smoking chamber.

There is a good free resource from the LSU College of Agriculture which covers the basic plans whether you are basing it on one of the styles below. Click each of the links to go straight to the plan for details.

• Wooden barrel for a smoking chamber
• Mason/Frame
• Wood Frame
• Concrete Masonry

Here is the basic concept from the LSU Wooden Barrel Design, basically you can just scale it bigger.

Most important factors for success:

• Fully Cured, if doing meat
• Airflow
• Temperature
• Humidity

Just want to touch on each of these briefly to give an overview if you’re new to the cold smoking process.

If you want more info and a long post I wrote on the methods and basics of cold smoking, check out the post here.