How to Build a cold smoker

Build a cold smoker

So you can make delicious squaw candy

One fresh July evening at our summer cabin in Soldotna, Alaska, my husband, Tom, and I sat with friends around a campfire. We talked about salmon, wondered why the main run reds were late this year, and swapped fish tales. Someone began to pass around a clear plastic package of squaw candy — sticks of salmon jerky. As I was a relatively new resident of Alaska, this was a novelty to me. I took one of the amber sticks, sniffed it, and cautiously took a bite. It was smoky, salty, savory, and, well, indescribable.

“Wow! Who brought this?” I asked, taking a larger bite.

Our Alaskan friend Glenn Kooly grinned, “I did. I just finished them this afternoon. What do you think?”

“This is … wonderful!” I said.

“How did you make it?” Tom asked.

Glenn leaned back in his chair. “Well, I don’t generally share my special recipe with just anybody. It’s been sort of a family secret for centuries.” Glenn’s father is Norwegian; his mother native Alaskan Inuit.

“Aw, come on!” Tom persisted. My husband fancies himself a gourmet cook, and in fact is able to prepare any kind of fish better than anyone I know.

“Oh please, do tell him?” I begged, taking another bite.

“Well, you have to have a cold smoker,” Glenn said.

“I have a smoker,” Tom replied, pointing to an ugly black, round metal can a few feet away.

“Oh, no, that won’t work, man! You don’t want to cook it. You want to smoke it. You need a cold smoker. It takes days to make. Quite a process.” Glenn grinned.

I knew Tom would take the bait. He said matter-of-factly, “Well, I will get a cold smoker then.” Talking with his mouth full he asked, “Where did you buy yours?”

“Hmmph! Can’t buy one. Have to make it.” Glenn paused and looked intently at Tom. “You come by the house tomorrow and I’ll show you mine. If you actually go to the trouble to build one, then I’ll give you my recipe.”

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“Deal!”

The next day we stood in Glenn’s backyard craning our necks to appreciate an authentic Alaskan Inuit native-built cold smoker. It was a sight — a twelve-foot-tall wooden contraption that looked like an outhouse for Paul Bunyan.

Smoke was slowly curling from the top. The smell was heavenly. Tom walked around it, inspecting it from every angle.

“Now, see, you have to have little vents down here at the bottom and up at the top,” Glenn explained, opening the door. “Look!” he said, stepping back and inviting us to peek inside. There, hanging from horizontal poles about 10 feet in the air, were probably more than a hundred pieces of the delectable red jerky in strips about 18 inches long.

We took the smokehouse’s measurements that very afternoon, and I went to work drawing out a detailed building plan. The next morning, we went to the big box store in Kenai, bought stick lumber and plywood, and began building in earnest.

A couple of days later, we were finished and it looked smashing. We sided ours with cedar planks left over from our cabin and topped it with a little green metal roof. I was so proud!

Glenn came by to check our project, and because he was duly impressed, he shared his “secret” Inuit/Norwegian method with us. And I’ll share it with you. But first you have to build a smoker.

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