Raising Humidity in Smoker to decrease cooking time

[akdave]

Jonathan in one of your post you mentioned 2 methods or raising the humidity with the wick/sponge effect and was wondering how they introduce steam in a commercial operation and does anyone have any other ideas what we can do it in our home smokers. I installed a water pan on my home smoke and I am afraid to put a sponge or mop head in it to increase the evaporation as if the pan drys out they may catch fire. 10-12 hours is a long wait for the larger sausages to reach 156 Degrees

[Jonathon]

@akdave Commercial processors will have smokers that are able to atomize water or spray water onto a hot plate to control the amount of humidity in their smokers. The biggest advantage of this style of smoking will show up around 140 degrees, they can make their wet bulb hotter than the surface temperature of their products so the product will finish cooking very quickly but still give you a juicy finished product.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has additional ideas on this!

[akdave]

If I can reach 50% Humidity how much do you think it will decrease the cooking time, it now takes me 10-12 hours to get my product finished in the larger casings.

[Jonathon]

@akdave There would be too many factors to give you an exact amount but I would say that you could knock off at least an hour ro two of that time, especially during the initial phases when your wet bulb temperature (which you won’t have a way to measure) is hotter than the surface temp of your product. Once that reverses and the surface temp is higher than the wet bulb the advantages will be cut down but I still think I am being conservative when I say an hour or so.

[demmerich]

@akdave how about putting in a vaporizer that produces heat vapor. I bought one for my aging chamber not realizing it produced heat vapor. I will bet that will work and if you don’t have the room…Magyver it! LOL. leave it outside and attach a hose to it and attach the hose inside the smoker.

[Jonathon]

@demmerich I actually thought of something like this, using a humdifier and running a hose but unless you can get it to travel in an upward direction the entire way I don’t think it would work. I couldnt set that up (at least without getting totally ridiculous) without drilling a hole in the PK-100, which I was not willing (or allowed) to do.