It's Evan,
one of the founders here at Whiskey Morning Coffee. We are a small coffee roaster located in Tolar. TX. Whiskey Morning Coffee was the first company to cold smoke coffee beans. In December 2022, we had to build a cold smoker that could smoke 300 pounds of coffee.
In this article, I will show the cold smoker we built and how it works. If you are looking to cold smoke as a business this would be a good size cold smoker. If you are looking to build a cold smoker for your house, you can take the design idea and make smaller.
When building the cold smoker, the top 3 things we needed to consider:
- Heat source large enough to fill area with smoke while keeping the smoking chamber temperature under 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
- A rack system that could load and unload trays of coffee.
- Circulating air flow to get a consistent and heavy smoke.
Elevated Smoke Chamber
The first step when building the cold smoker was determining the size of the smoke chamber. We needed to be sure that it could hold up to 300lbs of roasted coffee. The smoke chamber measures 46''X46''X60''.
The next step was figuring out the heat source needed to fill the chamber with smoke. We decided to go with an 8-to-10-gallon heat source. Tj, was going to build a smoker, but we found a perfect size mini smoker at Buckee's for $70
The last step was figuring out how to sperate the heat source from smoking chamber to ensure the temperature where the coffee is cold smoking does not get higher than 175 degrees. We used cinder blocks to elevate the smoker. We decided the cinder block route because it gives us the ability to move the smoker easily and adjust the size if needed. The cinder block stand measures 55''X55''X40''
Rack System
How you load and unload your smoker will be specific on what you are trying to cold smoke.
We are smoking coffee, so we needed a way to hold and stack coffee beans in perforated trays. The easiest way to do that was make racks in the smoke chamber that you could slide trays in and out. Due to the depth on the smoker, we made it double sided so you can load from both sides.
Circulating Air Flow
The heat source is a smoker itself and has an airflow design to produce smoke.
However, we needed to figure out how the airflow would work to circulate the smoke in the elevated smoke chamber. We built the roof like a house with a 2'' gap to allow smoke to pull out.
The A frame roof design allows the smoke to rise and circulate before exiting the smoke shack.
Conclusion
We have smoked over 3,000lbs of coffee with this designed cold smoker and it has been great! The roasting chamber has never gotten over 120 degrees, the rack system takes about 15-20 minutes to load/unload, and we are able to smoke a whole batch of coffee with about 2-3 logs of pecan and cherry wood.
If you have not tried Whiskey Morning Coffee's Texian Army Brew give it a try! The Texian Army Brew is a medium/dark roast coffee that we put in this smoker and cold smoke with pecan and cherry wood.
Order Here: Smoked Coffee with Pecan and Cherry Wood: Texian Army Brew - Whiskey Morning Coffee
