On Mar 3, 10:54 am, " >
wrote:
> A good cleaning of the grates fixed his problem. We figure the oil in
> the marinade went rancid, and mixed with the spices made the fishy
> smell. It was strong. I recognized the smell (now check this out if
> you doubt) from my old mother's grease that she had when I was a
> kid.

You may be onto something here. While I don't think the smoker boxes
need cleaning (no oil, nothing to go rancid) I am suddenly reminded
that I used a cast iron pan (a seasoned one) from the garage to smoke
the wood chips in. The season in that pan (oil) could well have gotten
mixed in with the wood smoke to cause the taint.

The low temp isn't designed to cook - only smoke. The info I've read
indicates the top end of the cold-smoke range is 80F, but I'm not sure
that "the colder, the better" is the case. However, by locating the
smoke generator remotely (originally it was within the box causing the
80-90F temperatures) the temperature can be held very low now.

Thanks for the tip - I never would have thought along those lines, but
it makes sense.

Any other opinions people have would be helpful as well. Cold smoking
is new to me, and I wouldn't mind having it down before I throw my
20lb hams in there in a few weeks.

--Jeff