Alutiiq clay-lined subfloor pit
A large clay-lined depression built beneath some Alutiiq house floors in the Kodiak region, documented in Koniag contexts for food storage and possibly fermentation.
Built structures · Smoking ovens, kilns and cabinets
Waters-Bond remote-firebox smoker
A plywood smoking chamber fed from a separate firebox made of a 55-gallon drum, designed in 1960 at a Pascagoula, Mississippi, fisheries laboratory for smoking mullet.
A remote firebox
The Waters-Bond smoker separates the fire from the food. A 55-gallon drum serves as the firebox and sends its smoke through galvanised stovepipe into the bottom of a plywood chamber, which measures 4 by 4 by 4 feet. The fish hang inside the chamber on hooks. The design was made to keep the fire outside the chamber, so the heat and the smoke can be managed apart from the food.
The article describes the smoker as a mullet design from the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries laboratory at Pascagoula.
Sources for this section
The parts and the build
The article lists three sheets of quarter-inch exterior plywood, 38 nominal 2 by 2 by 4 foot framing pieces, the drum with its 8 by 10 inch door and 6 inch outlet, eight feet of galvanised stovepipe with an elbow, four concrete blocks, sixteen square feet of half-inch mesh, hinges, hooks, sealer and stainless-wire hooks. Its construction took 16 hours of unskilled labour with common hand tools.
The article's list of parts is the only material schedule the research found. It has no cut list, no joint details and no drawing of the flue connection, so a builder would need the original figures before copying the frame. The tools the article names for the drum and pipe cuts are a cold chisel and a hand hacksaw.
Sources for this section
What the design cannot show
The article is a historical trial record. It does not establish a current material approval, a fire clearance for a backyard, or a household batch size. The trial load was large, and the article gives no safe scale-down. Its statements about fire hazard and temperature control are the designers' reasoning, not verified engineering.
The smoker is recorded here as a documented design. Any use for food needs a current fish-safety process, reviewed materials and fire design, and a validated batch, none of which the source provides.
Sources for this section
History
M. E. Waters and D. J. Bond published the design in the Commercial Fisheries Review in August 1960. It was built for a trial of smoked mullet, with 240 fish weighing about 150 pounds. The article does not place the design in any earlier tradition.
Site
SettingA standalone smoker set up at the Pascagoula laboratory for the mullet trial.
GroundSupported on four concrete blocks. The article gives no footing detail.
ClimateThe article gives no climate figures.
FootprintChamber 4 by 4 by 4 ft (121.92 cm cube). Firebox width and depth and the flue route are not stated.
NotesConstruction took 16 hours of unskilled labour with common hand tools.
A build is made where it stands: moving it means building it again.
How it is built
Risks and precautions
The article says the separate firebox reduces fire hazard and helps control temperature. That is the design's rationale, and it is not checked against modern fire codes or current materials approval.
Materials
- Exterior-grade plywood, 1/4 in — Walls of the smoking chamber
- Nominal 2 × 2 × 4 ft framing — Frame of the chamber
- 55-gallon steel drum — Firebox, connected to the chamber
- Galvanised stovepipe, 6 in — Carries smoke from the firebox into the bottom of the chamber
- 4 blocks Concrete blocks — Support
- Mesh, 1/2 in — Racks
- Hinges, hooks and stainless-wire hooks — Hanging the fish and fitting the doors
- Sealer — Coating the plywood
- Cut the 8 by 10 inch door and the 6 inch outlet in the drum, using a cold chisel and a hand hacksaw, as the article names.
- Connect the galvanised stovepipe and elbow from the drum to the bottom centre of the chamber.
- Frame the 4 by 4 by 4 foot chamber from the nominal 2 by 2 framing and clad it in quarter-inch exterior plywood.
- Fit the hinges, hooks and half-inch mesh racks, and seal the plywood.
- Set the chamber and firebox on the four concrete blocks.
Places
Pascagoula, Mississippi
Manufacture · Locality evidenceThe article is from the US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries laboratory in Pascagoula. It does not describe the smoker in use anywhere else.
Related
More from United States
Appalachian meathouse
A source-based account of Appalachian meat-curing outbuildings, centered on the Henry Whitehead Place smokehouse at Cades Cove, Tennessee. Regional practice and this one building are kept distinct.
Backyard smokehouse frame (UConn Extension)
A wood-framed backyard smokehouse built from pine tongue-and-groove boards, with a sloped roof, vent dampers and a door, set out in a Connecticut Extension guide for smoking fish, pork, turkey, jerky and sausage.
Bean hole
A Maine bean hole is a fixed, stone-lined pit that holds a covered iron pot among coals beneath earth. Logging-camp testimony and present-day demonstrations document related local practices.
Brewer for bulk work and a finishing pan
The kettle heats and reduces a large volume of thin liquid such as whey; before it nears the brewer's minimum fill the batch moves to a wide pan for the thick, stirred finish.
Dene birch-bark-lined cache
A Dene cache pit at Upper Cook Inlet, Alaska, initially dated to around 1,000 years ago. JBER documents a below-ground feature lined with birch bark and grasses; exact contents and construction details remain under study.
Grass-lined fish pit
CDC guidance depicts fish heads in a grass-lined hole in the ground and describes it as a traditional Alaska Native food-preparation method; it names no specific Nation or community.
Mount Vernon ice house
George Washington’s Mount Vernon ice house stored winter-cut Potomac ice in a hillside dry well for use in warmer months. The official description and 1798 estate inventory give distinct details of its form.
Industrial era
Acadian boucanière
A Cap-Pelé boucanière is an Acadian herring-smoking building. The documented Willie Niles example is a one-storey wood-frame structure with a ridge smoke vent and interior bays for hanging fish-bearing cannes.
Achcharu
Achcharu is a family of Sri Lankan vinegar pickles made with mixed vegetables or seasonal fruit and a piquant spice dressing. This version is a quick, refrigerated, non-fermented mixed-vegetable pickle.
Acocote
The acocote is a long, hollowed and dried gourd used to draw aguamiel from a mature maguey. It is a harvesting tool: the sap is transferred to a separate vessel before it ferments into pulque.
Adrak / ginger murabba
Adrak murabba preserves young ginger in sugar syrup, a sweet South Asian preparation recorded in Indian cookery and food-processing sources.
African locust bean seeds (Parkia biglobosa)
Parkia biglobosa seeds are fermented into regional West African seasonings, including nététou, iru, dawadawa and soumbala. The yellow fruit pulp is a separate food, and names and methods vary by place.
Akazu (red sake-lees vinegar)
Japanese reddish-brown vinegar from sake lees matured about three years, turned to vinegar by acetic bacteria; the vinegar of Handa and Edomae sushi rice.
All-purpose wheat flour
A refined common-wheat flour blended for a broad range of baking; its protein and behavior vary with wheat, milling and market.
Almond mushroom
The almond mushroom, Agaricus subrufescens, was cultivated in eastern North America in the 1800s, lost its market, and returned as a cultivated mushroom from Brazil, where it is grown under several names.
Community
No community contributions have been published for this entry yet.
Share what you made
Sign in to contribute. Published comments and photos are free to read.
Sources
US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Commercial Fisheries ReviewEquipment · Method · History
A remote-firebox smoker for mullet (Commercial Fisheries Review, vol. 22, no. 8)The smoker is a 4 × 4 × 4 ft plywood chamber fed from a 55-gallon drum firebox through 6 inch galvanised stovepipe.
The parts list gives three sheets of quarter-inch exterior plywood, 38 nominal 2 × 2 × 4 ft pieces, 16 square feet of half-inch mesh, and four concrete blocks.
Construction took 16 hours of unskilled labour with common hand tools; the trial batch was about 150 pounds of mullet.
Cited in: A remote firebox; The parts and the build; What the design cannot show