How to use a smoker

Depending on the heating method, there are wood, gas and electric smokehouses. The first is the street version. It is only suitable for use in open spaces, for example, in a country house. Such a smokehouse can be made of steel.

As for gas and electric, these are home versions that can be installed in the kitchen under the hood. They are usually made of stainless steel.

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Depending on the method of preparing dishes, there are hot and cold smokehouses. The only significant difference between them is the distance separating the chamber in which the food is prepared from the hearth. This is due to the peculiarities of the temperature regime: hot smoking requires heating to 90–150 °C smoke, but for the cold method you need a range of 30–40 °C.

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How to use a hot smoker

• Prepare the smokehouse by clearing it of products from previous use;
• heat the chamber to 200 °C, after which the heating intensity is reduced so that the air temperature in it drops to 100 °C;
• add combustion material (chips of fruit and deciduous trees) and increase the heat so that the chamber warms up to the desired temperature (up to 150 °C);
• lay out the products, leaving gaps between them for free circulation of smoke;
• Maintaining the desired temperature, cook the fish, poultry or meat until cooked (the process takes on average 40–60 minutes).

Important! To enjoy the right taste of smoked meats, it is recommended to keep them in a cool place for 24 hours before eating. During this time, the bitterness from the smoke will have time to disappear, which can spoil the first impression of the dish.

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Home food preparation

Before hot smoking, fish, poultry and meat are usually dry salted. To do this, pre-cleaned and washed products are rubbed with a mixture of salt and spices (herbs, pepper, garlic to taste). It is recommended to cut or pierce especially large pieces in several places so that they are better saturated with spices.

Important! For hot smoking, it is advisable to choose fatty products. In this case, after heat treatment you can get a juicy, not overdried, smoky delicacy.

Then the future smoked meats are put under pressure for several days (until hardening) in a cool place. After the meat or fish has lost excess juice, it is soaked in clean water to get rid of excess salt - on average 1-2 hours.

After this, they can be dried a little. But it is also possible to immediately send it to a heated smokehouse - you just need to blot off excess moisture with a paper towel.

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How to use a cold smoker

The distinctive feature of this method is that there is no need to preheat the chamber. The only thing that is required is a willingness to maintain the specified smoke temperature for several days (from 24 hours to 5 days).

If everything is done correctly, then during this time the products will get rid of excess moisture, acquiring a characteristic taste and aroma.Meat and poultry dried in this way will retain their freshness for 4–6 months. The shelf life of fish is somewhat shorter - from 90 to 120 days.

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How to prepare food

Taking into account the fact that the future delicacy will undergo low temperature (30–40 °C) processing, the main preservative in this case will be salt. Therefore, when preparing brines and marinades, it should be added so much that the raw potatoes immersed in them float to the surface.

The process of home salting itself takes from two to 15 days (depending on the size of the carcasses or pulp). The next stage - soaking - is also a rather lengthy process, depending on the thickness of the pieces. It can take from several hours to days.

This is followed by curing of future smoked meats for 2–5 days. If during this process a coating of salt appears on the carcasses, they will need to be soaked again. If not, then after noticeable signs of drying appear, the products are loaded into the smokehouse, where they are brought to readiness.

Note! Recommendations for preparing fish, meat and poultry are not complete instructions. These are just tips to help you choose the right recipe for cooking smoked meats.