ABSTRACT
The air is then forced down along the walls through supply
cones or slots that are attached to the bottom of air ducts.
The airflow comes down from the walls, across the floor,
up through the products, and returns to the return duct that
is located at the middle of the smokehouse as illustrated in
Fig. 2.[2] The returned airflow is reheated and recirculated
back to the smokehouse. The heating source can be steam,
gas fire, or electricity. As one of the major functions of
smokehouse is drying, the returned airflow usually picks
up substantial amount of moisture from the product. Part
of the moist air is exhausted and replaced with fresh air.
During the hot and humid summer season, a larger quan-
tity of air has to be exhausted and replaced in order to
maintain certain dry and wet bulb temperatures. In the
cold and dry winter or during cooking cycle, steam is
injected into the airflow before going to the smokehouse
to satisfy the humidity setting as summer. The dry and wet
bulb temperatures of return air are usually used as process
control references. The conditioned air is then supplied
by the main blower to the two sides of air duct inside
the smokehouse. The point where the air streams coming
from two sides meet is known as the “break point.”
The airflow at the break point is very turbulent and has
the highest velocity in the smokehouse. Most smoke-
houses use the rotating dampers as shown in Fig. 2
