Behold Alex's Cold Smoking Contraption.

To build this beauty, Alex started with a gifted excess mini Weber grill and removed the top vent. He arranged a length of round furnace pipe acquired for $3 at the Habitat ReStore into the hole, followed by a $5 length of flexible dryer vent. Connections were reinforced with aluminum duct tape, $5 a roll.

The dryer vent ran into the modified lower vent of our existing large charcoal grill. Alex used the angle grinder and many curse words to extend the hole enough for the pipe to fit in properly. The grill remains usable to cook off meat with charcoal.

Useage is simple: Build a small wood fire in the mini Weber. Put the meat on the big grill and monitor temperature. After 18 hours, you have ham!

The dryer vent was incapable of handling the smoke heat for the duration and melted through once. Alex cut off the effected part, reattached with tape, and went about the smoking. A more permanent solution would be durable flexible hosing or connecting pieces of furnace pipe.

Cold smoking is the act of surrounding a piece of food with smoke but little to no residual heat. The ideal cold smoking temperature for a ham is 60 degrees F. Given that the air temperature in summer is generally higher than 60, adjustments can be made. We kept a pan of ice in the base of the meat chamber to help keep cool and were able to average about 75 degrees F.

Alas, our basement is still a little too warm for dry curing, the next step in the ham Alex wished to make. We ended air drying early before mold set in and packaged the ham in slices and chunks for the future. Someday we'll learn that hams are not meant to be made in July.

What do you think of Alex's creation? DIY genius or a bunch of junk?

PS. For classier Weber modifications, head over to our friend Dave's site Webercam.com.

The hillbilly ham house hootenanny concludes today. Catch up on Part One: Why Build a Hillbilly Hamhouse and Part Two: How to Construct a Hillbilly Hamhouse.

So there she was, in all her glory. I ran her for a couple weekends to churn out some smoked meat to give away for Christmas. I poked me a thermometer thru the tinfoil a few times to check’er, and she was about 100 dee-grees, and that book on smokin’ meat—charcoalabalooza or somesuch name, it had—ennyway, I had Rachel read parts of it to me and it said 100 de-grees is about right.

I hadda go buy me some fish to smoke—they’s not bitin’ down at the crick, and them’s all got like two heads and talk funny and what-not ennyway, I ‘spect that comes from livin’ in the run-off of the coal-mine down the way, that’s a whole different story-- but in true Mr. Tayse Christmas fashion, I foun’ me some pig roastin’ meat in the freezer, and made me up some o’ that good ol’ Canadian backbacon.

And, durned if that hillbilly hamhouse didn’t turn out some of the best durned backbacon and smoked salmon ever I laid a tooth to, even usin’ that ol’ oak that fell down two years ago for the smokin’ firewood instead o’ some fancy aldermanwood or whatever. Kinda tasted like some o’ that fancy wine they get outta Californi-a, that chardocuternnay or whatever, that kind all them pussies what drink white wine call “oaky”…

That son-in-law o’ mine, he brought out a sign fer the hillbilly hamhouse, so’s them’s seein’ it fer the first time’d know what she was, but me, I figger if you dunno by lookin’ what she is, you’re dumber than I is. But I’m right proud o’ that ol’ hamhouse, it dresses up the neighborhood, besides makin’ good eats.

I’m thinkin’ ‘bout mebbe expandin’ on it. I been wantin’ to smoke a whole hog, now. I gots me this ol’ chevy up on blocks out back, an’ I figger if set fire to that rustbucket, you know, to get rid o’ the plastic and stuff inside, then I could pipe the ol’ barbecue smoke down the hill into that chevy. I reckon could sit me a whole hog up in the driver’s seat to smoke, now there’d be a sight to please any hilljack—it’d be lak that ol’ hog’s drivin’ along in a cloud o’ smoke, mebbe I’d put a pregnant Winston in ‘is mouth just for show—and when he’s done, we’d have us some good eats too…