Thanks teesquare - I've heard they work great.
What I tasted in my past cold smokes is quite different compared to the cold smoke output of the KBQ unit. Full combustion with lots of air and heat upstream of the food makes a different flavour (in my opinion) compared to my previous efforts. From what I've experienced the KBQ system is set up to pull a good (large) quantity of smoke and heat into the system enough to flavour the food and bring the cold masses up to a finished temp using a cycling temperature range and convection air flow. It is the full combustion aspect of the firebox design that would most likely keep an Amazen Smoker Tube from being a practical solution on the KBQ for cold smoke. I had some pouches I made from old shaker screens years ago and all the material inside got incinerated / charcoaled within 5-10 minutes during my first initial cooks. I just had to try them (of course). They also got extremely screwed up from the 1200F+ heat
RG mentioned the phrase "Top Fuel Dragster" in his review which tipped me to start this thread about a separate cold smoke functionality - been pondering it for a while myself. Anyone who has used their KBQ to cold smoke could attest that there is alot of combustion material and air flow involved. It seems like the process is just a little outside of its (many) designed primary functionalities. I feel that a cold smoke feature where a smaller, more direct fire box, matching fans, higher sensitivity thermosensor and the ability to reload smoking material could only add value for owners (and others) in attempts to get the ultimate smoke. Somewhat like a sousvide level control kit. Smaller temp range cycling and lower finished temps.
When I first looked at my unit and figured the easiest would be to fabricate an "clip on" insert box inside the firebox for the top poppet valve intake. This would work in the same manner as where I had positioned my smoking pouches (above the charcoal directly in-front of the dirty smoke valve). However it would forego the ability of the unit to fully combust the off-gasses from the smoke material. I looked at spacing out a fire basket in the insert where charcoal could be loaded downstream of the smoking material and this is where any design needs to address air flow volumes. Ash control is part of that and believe add-ons could be matched to achieve this. I have a partial design in mind to share with whomever here on the forum and some experience with basic principles of air flow and temperature but need the reality check here if I am off base regarding possible demand.
My hope and intention for this thread was to check if others here feel the ability to generate smaller, clean cold smoke volumes in their KBQ would be of value to their toolset and worth some additional group brain cycles, including Bill Karau's after possible demand is getting firmed up.
Thanks for sharing on this and welcoming all ideas on the forum.
Best regards
