Smoking meat at home(updated)

Smoking of meat is done mainly to improve the flavour of meat. It also extends the shelf life of meat. Most meat and fish can be smoked. Most common is salmon, mackerel,bacon, eel, chicken and sausages. What people often don't know is that you can also smoke cheese, beer, and even tea! So let's start smoking, you can easily build a smoker yourself!

Hot smoking

Hot smoking is done to cook to the food, extend the shelf life a bit and most importantly to add flavour. This is done on a temperature of 52 to 80 degrees. A higher temperature would melt the fat and to much water would vaporise. So it's important to keep the temperature within the range. Some types of meat can be done in higher temperatures as an exception an example is the beef for a brisket.

Cold smoking

Cold smoking is purely done for taste. The meat gets grilled, cooked, cured or eaten raw later. This is the method I use in the video. The capacity of this type of smoker is really big you hang the pieces of meat with metal hooks on a stick above the chimney. It gives allot of smoke and isn't suitable for a urban area.

Smoking installations

You've got man type of smoking installations. The kitchen oven with a smoke tray, smoke barrels, chimney style and even bbq smokers. All have different uses.

Kitchen oven

You can smoke your meat in a kitchen oven you only need a smoke tray. They are always a bit small so you can only smoke one meal at a time. A nice example how to do this is here

Smoke barrel or bbq

In a smoke barrel or bbq with lit you have a tiny fire with saw dust and some coals. You let the smoker get hot and than you close the lid. The smoke will This works great in summer and is a nice addition to the bbq. A real family thing.

Chimney smoker

The chimney that I use is with a underground tunnel what cools down the smoke. A very small fire is made in the beginning of the tunnel. The air gets drawn to the chimney when the first is going you cover the chimney with old cotton blankets to capture the smoke. You smoke the meat for a couple of hours in the cold smoky air. After smoking it you boil it in water to cook the meat tender. This cleans the meat and makes the smoke flavour subtle. I made a video of the process enjoy!

(for some reason I get ''invalid I frame if I embed it in this post)

Suitable wood

Many types of wood species are suitable. Oak, birch, apple, poplar, cherry, hickory are great flavours. In The Netherlands we use allot of oak and birch. You don't need much wood only the chimney smoker requires some blocks of wood. The rest only sawdust.