• Home
  • Donate
  • The Shop
    • Herbal Salves
    • Herbal Massage Oils
    • Herbal Soaps
    • Herbal Teas
    • Herbal Seasonings
    • Bulk Dried Herbs
    • Essential Oils
    • Mushrooms
    • Live Plants
  • Future Stewards
  • Roots
    • Learning Facility
    • Stewards of Quiet Creek
    • Board of Directors
    • Instructors
    • Awards & Memberships
    • Quiet Creek Corner
    • Down To Earth Resources
  • Classes & Events
    • 2025 Workshops
    • 2025 Schedule
    • Spring Fest
    • Fall Fest
    • Build Your Own Class
    • Farm to Table Luncheon
    • Weddings
  • Apprenticeships
    • Volunteer
    • Meet Our Apprentices
    • Apprenticeship Experience
  • Videos
  • Contact Us
Quiet Creek Herb Farm & School of Country Living

Where there’s Smoke, there’s Rusty

10/15/2011

0 Comments

 
Behind the Quiet Creek barn sets a green metal shed that puffs out more smoke than a chain smoker.  Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year for the past twelve years, our outdoor wood burner has faithfully supplied the house and barn with warm heat and hot water. 

Many a visitor has queried with a pointed finger, “Is that a smokehouse?”  Rusty actually planted a smokehouse apple tree next to the boiler so he could reply “affirmative” without fibbing or going into detail about our renewable energy heating system.  Finally, he can truthfully state “yes, it is a smokehouse!”  

It all came about when desiring smoked meats without synthetic preservatives.   He investigated a venison ham rub recipe that required forty hours of cold smoking.  Needing a simple source of smoke, he then created his “redneck smoker” in conjunction with our heat source. 

In the development stages, Rusty noticed nine out of ten days, the wood burner smoke blew to the north.  Hoping to capture the majority of it, he acquired twelve feet of furnace pipe (six inch diameter) with assorted tees and elbows from his dad.  Then he attached a one by two by three foot plywood box to the nearby tractor shed.  Cutting a hole for the furnace pipe, he began telescoping sections toward the wood burner chimney with a few screws and wire strap and the pipe was angled straight to the smoke.  Finally, Rusty rigged up a metal garbage can with a hole cut out of the bottom.  The garbage can funnel was wired to a metal ladder leaning against the wood burner and extended it to a spot just north of the chimney. 

The wood burner gleefully puffs away as the wind pushes the smoke down the funnel through recycled furnace pipe and into the plywood smoking chamber.  There hangs the ham from a wire, basting in the swirling cold smoke.  An exit hole with an elbow allows the smoky air to flow through.  There are two hinged doors on the box’s side make for easy access to hang items (i.e. hams, cheese, and jerky) and for checking the smoke progress. 

Rusty is particular when it comes to high quality smoke.  His first ham was completed with green maple and oak and the next is to be christened with hickory or apple wood. 

Come on out for a Quiet Creek visit any Friday and Saturday to warm your hands and/or sample some hams.   

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Rusty and Claire Orner, with their two sons, Walker and Ashton, are stewards of the non-profit educational organization, Quiet Creek Herb Farm & School of Country Living in Brookville, Pennsylvania. They can be contacted at 
    ​
    www.quietcreekherbfarm.org 
    Quiet Creek © 2018

    ​

    Archives

    March 2021
    February 2018
    December 2012
    February 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Back To Basics
    Birds
    Donating
    Donations
    Earthen Building
    Farm Life
    Farm Production
    Farm Visitors
    Flowers
    Holiday
    Holidays
    Interns
    Mushrooms
    Nutrition
    Pasa
    Peppers
    Sabbatical
    Square Dance
    Sustainable Farm
    Traveling
    Volunteering

    RSS Feed


Picture

Proudly powered by Weebly