Easy Smoker Lighting

[ijcooper]

Dried teabags mixed with dried lavender heads and stalks. Lovely fragrant white smoke.

Love the idea of dried teabags. Will be trying them soon!

 

[REDWOOD]

Yeah, me and the bees generally forget what it was we were inspecting and sit around munching the stores instead.

Sounds good to me

 

[REDWOOD]

Dried teabags mixed with dried lavender heads and stalks. Lovely fragrant white smoke.

That's all mine need is a caffeine in take although it might stop their OCD

 

[Finman]

.
Lovely smoke?....a good reason to keep bees.

NOW I understand why rotten wood is not such what Guys are seeking.

 

[victor meldrew]

Seem to have found a REALLY easy way to light a smoker.



Ensure metal trivet is in the bottom of the smoker.



Corrugated cardboard about 2-3 inches deep either coiled or shredded.

Blow torch until well alight. Lots of puffing to make sure it is alight.



Then a handful of pet bedding - wood shavings. Check that the hamster is not in it, or better still use fresh. ;-)



Finally an inch or two of pure pine cat litter pellets (unused).

All alight in a few minutes and keeps going for ages.



In a two hour inspection may top up with cat litter towards the end of the two hours. Keep a box with cat litter in it with me - flip lid of smoker pour in more pellets, couple of puffs and it is going really well.



Tons of cool, white smoke. Keeps alight. Perfect.

A point worth making ' pine cat litter pellets ' make more than a fair amount of tar .
I've used them for ages as they just keep on smouldering. To minimise the amount , I open the lid and let the smoker burn itself out ( this can take a while . ) don't close the lid fully for storage or you'll have a devil of a job opening it again.
VM


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jd101k2000]

A point worth making ' pine cat litter pellets ' make more than a fair amount of tar .
I've used them for ages as they just keep on smouldering. To minimise the amount , I open the lid and let the smoker burn itself out ( this can take a while . ) don't close the lid fully for storage or you'll have a devil of a job opening it again.
VM


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks for that. I had found that I was getting a lot of tar. As you suggest, I always store my smoker open. From time to time I run over it with the blow torch. This seems to burn off the tar. The best thing, since finding this mixture, is that I do not worry about my smoker going out. It is so reliable. The bees also seem to be very relaxed. The smoke is cool (blow it from the nozzle to my hand an inch away to test) and profuse when needed. Also, the ingredients are far cheaper than those on the websites of bee keeping suppliers.

 

[rockdoc]

I'm with Finman on this one. Although I now mainly spray with water, I have old rotten wood on the go in the smoker just in case. Interesting idea on the kitty litter and tea bags, might give each a go to see.

 

[psafloyd]

Peeling enough oranges and shelling enough pistachios to fill a smoker - I'd need to do an awful lot of both to see me through the summer.... on the other hand, what a great excuse to stock up on pistachios.

proverbial?

We save the pistachios when we have them and the missus has an orange almost EVERY day, so they are easy to come by. Also, I save all my satsumas from Christmas time, which is quite a lot...

The lavender is the main fuel and I have a couple of sacks worth which last a whole season.

 

[bontbee]

We save the pistachios when we have them and the missus has an orange almost EVERY day, so they are easy to come by. Also, I save all my satsumas from Christmas time, which is quite a lot...

The lavender is the main fuel and I have a couple of sacks worth which last a whole season.

there's not enough of us eating enough nuts, and I'm the only one eating oranges - I might try the peelings in the greenhouse* to add a fragrance to my woodsmoke.

* or perhaps, even better, the office, where the atmosphere is so dry that even a complete orange will dry out before it rots...


and the proverbial?

 

[Alabamaeee]

there's not enough of us eating enough nuts, and I'm the only one eating oranges - I might try the peelings in the greenhouse* to add a fragrance to my woodsmoke.

* or perhaps, even better, the office, where the atmosphere is so dry that even a complete orange will dry out before it rots...


and the proverbial?

Is that the air quality or the attitude of the staff

 

[bontbee]

I'm glad to be able to say it's the air "quality".... a modern building with "climate control"