Tree Stump Meat Smoker

Smokehouse plans presented on our site are free and will make functional smokehouses. These smokehouse designs were chosen for their original design and practicality. Before one starts buying or building a smokehouse, it is recommended to read the primer on smoking meat in order to get some basics about meat smoking and smokehouses.

Almost any smokehouse will do for home production. If you see smoke sipping through your cardboard box, you are smoking meat, that simple. It does not have to be perfectly tight if the cooking process will be performed somewhere else.

To make our point that great products can be made using very simple smokehouses please check the photos below:

Most unusual but effective smoker made from the stump of an old oak tree. This original setup has been in operation for 20 years. Smoker was located on Poliwoda Fishing Grounds, Opole, Poland.

A sheet of metal covers the smoke delivery channel and the bricks lying on top provide stability. It is connected to a smoker by an underground pipe. A black item lying on the ground to the right of the smoker is an old potato burlap sack that is used as the smoker’s cover. Note that a potato burlap sack makes an excellent cover allowing just the right amount of smoke to sip through.

The fish is caught, smoked, and eaten the same day. Smoked trout ends up on a dinner plate in a next-door restaurant which is visited by German tourists. The restaurant and the fishing farm are located on the same grounds.

Above photos courtesy Poliwoda Fishing Grounds, Opole, Poland

Drum smoker. Smokesticks lying on top. A burlap sack will be placed on top.

Smoker connected to a fire pit by a trench (covered with plywood). Blanket on top of a smoker.

Plywood cover upright, there is visible fire in a fire pit.

Wire hanger used for hooks. Drum smoker photos courtesy Szunaj

Well, by now you realize how simple making smoked products can be. It has nothing to do with the looks of a smokehouse. The smokehouse is a tool, like a knife, grinder or a stuffer. Grinding partially frozen meat in a hand-cranked grinder will make a better sausage than grinding warm meat in an expensive commercial machine. The tool does not make a quality product - YOU DO! And making quality products depends on meat selection, curing, smoking, and cooking temperatures.

Available from Amazon

The Practical Guide to Making Salami is a companion book to The Art of Making Fermented Sausages, published in 2008. Since then, more information has become available; safety standards have been updated and tightened, new cultures have appeared, and getting supplies and newer equipment online has become more accessible. The most relevant theory has been transferred from The Art of Making Fermented Sausages. Still, The Practical Guide to Making Salami includes plenty of new materials such as fermented spreadable sausages, acidified sausages, or combining acidulants with natural fermentation. The recipes section has been expanded and includes 264 selected recipes from different countries so the reader can immediately produce sausages.