We've been smoking, curing & preserving food for quite while. My parents also did it when I was a kid , 60 plus years ago and still did it in the mid 1960's
If you cure and cold smoke it will keep , when hanging in the dry for quite a long time .
In some countries people use a special chamber 2 foot x 2 foot x 2 foot about eight feet up a wood burning chimney accessible from the outside of eh house to slow smoke whole hams that have been cured wet or dry with all manner of things added to the salt ..honey & crushed juniper berries for instance .
One place I took my wife to in 1984 for lunch was a working windmill water pump in Germany with a open range smouldering wood fire .
The old lady host reached up inside the chimney with a y forked stick about 4 feet long and brought down a hank of bronzed sausages which she shared with us at her lunch table with her homemade brot , brill food.... I can still see and taste it . The home made beer was ace as well .
During this sort of smoking the ham or sausages will lose almost 25% of their weight but it will keep for well over a year provided you used a brine syringe to inject the brine to inject brine close to the bone to stop bone rot.
But you'll need to read the books I've mentioned first before you attempt this , same with fowl and fish etc. don't chance doing it with out the best knowledge around.
if you have a Kindle look on Amazon at the two most popular books on home smoking , both books cost me about a tenner together.
1.
Home smoking & curing by Keith Erlandson
( this is a fairly modern practical book )
2.
Made at home , curing & smoking by Dick & James Strawbridge .....
This is a very modern book ( printed in 2008 ?) with lots of pictures & diagrams if you have the Kindle-lite.
I'd guess that with these two books on kindle or in hard copy you'll not need any other book .. The Strawbridge book is written in modern easy every day English
This is the way I made my new smoker on Christmas day 2013 for using my new compact smoke generator unit for cold smoking cheese ( no curing needed for cheese ) and for cold smoking cured salmon purchased on Christmas eve at a knock down price ( you can also use newly thawed out frozen salmon fillets & certain other thawed frozen fish ) .
I made a door to close off the underside of a redundant brick built BBQ . this is where the smoker tray sits
The blue drum is set above the crack in the the two paving slabs that form the BBQ shelf. I eased the slit open for about four inches using a power drill with and 8 mm SDS masonary bit on hammer drill this lets in the smoke from the lower chamber , The smoke was very cool. smoke flow was controlled by sliding a spare bit of wood to and fro under the lower edge of the door .
My mate uses his small smoker on three hous bricks at the bottom of a plastic dustbin . he burnt a hole in the base area and drilled some support rod holes & smoke venting holes in the upper top area .. uses the lid to close it off .
For my screen I've used a brand new stainless steel garden sieve that came from Aldi last spring it has three screens 6 mm . 4 mm and 1.5 mm meshes which are ideal for smoking small or floppy things . These screens are sat on clean washed engineering brick so that the screen with the food on is about three inches above the floor slabs and slightly to one side of the smoke inlet hole so that the smoke can circulate easily . The bricks and plastic over the outlet hole are to stop too much of a through draught and there for making the smoke too concentrated and short lived. The extra bricks on top of the plastic sheet and drum are to stop the howling wind blowing it away & to keep the foxes away .
A new design brick extension being added to the top with double doors in early spring 2014 as I hate the marauding foxes we are plagued with .
This picture is with the close fitting door open showing the sawdust burner fairly high off the ground on an old BBQ rack set on bricks as I have a back & shoulder problems that makes reaching down and forward difficult
This is the cheese and one of the three round mesh screens I use for smoking things that can be smoked flat. slabs of cheese cut to a max thickness of 1 & 1/2 inches thinck ( 40 mm )
This is the salmon with its natural glaze that forms after curing with 50/ 50 % of cooking salt and light brown sugar ... till it has lost 15 % of its original weight . ( lay it on a thick pad of clean kitchen towel to absorb the liquid that comes out when you apply the cure change it for a new pack three or so times during the 24 hrs you use the cure . Lightly rub the cure into both sides of the salmon.
Once you reach the cured weight wash the salmon well in cold running water dab it dry on kitchen towel and then wash it again , dab it dry on new towel and then leave to form a glaze on the flesh in the fridge uncovered. Mine took 30 hours to glaze.
now lightly rub virgin oil into the flesh as well as the skin and take it out for smoking .
I smoked my 500 gram slab for four hours , then brought it inside and like the cheese wrapped it in cooking foil and put it in the fridge for 24 hrs
We sampled the cheese and salmon at high tea today New Years day with sweet and savoury biscuits ( including Carrs water biscuits ) and some of our home made sweet green and red tomato chutney made with white vinegar and brown sugar ( done in /September2013 ) .
T'was fare fit for a king.. we still have plenty left the salmon should be good for a week and the cheese two to three weeks so long as they get covered in foil once opened and returned the fridge asap after cutting it and not left on the table in a warm room to grow bacteria.
You can also do what is called brining , formula for percentages of strengths is given in chart form in first book mentioned in the back pages . Plus there are loads of suggestions of/for varying the flavours by adding things to the brines etc.
With luck and by design I hope to be able to use my smoker for cold smoking and " hot smoking " .
Hot smoking is basically another name for part BBQ and using hot smoke at slightl lower than normal oven cooking temperatures but usually cooking for longer some times for serving direct cooked hot smoked food to the plate other times to carry on cooking it a bit more without smoke )
Topic: Cold smoking (Read 4258 times)
