Smoking basics

In short

• Smoke gives flavour, colour and a thin protective skin, but it only protects the surface. What keeps meat safe is salt, nitrite, cold and loss of water.
• Cold smoking: up to 20–22 °C (68–72 °F) at the meat, over days, with breaks. Hot smoking: chamber at 60–90 °C (140–195 °F), until the centre reaches a safe temperature.
• Salt first, then smoke. Unsalted raw meat is never cold-smoked.
• Pork and game only with a negative Trichinella result. Smoke and drying don't kill Trichinella.
• Good smoke is thin and bluish, from hardwood that smoulders. Thick, yellow or black smoke carries tar and PAHs.
• Smoke is full of carbon monoxide: never in a garage, cellar or kitchen.

What's inside

Chapters

1. What smoke does, and what it doesn't
2. The three ways of smoking
3. Salt first, then smoke
4. What gets smoked
5. Smokehouse, drum or cabinet
6. Equipment and measuring
7. Safety in brief
8. The smoking year
9. Your first season: three exercises
10. Common mistakes
11. Printable checklist

Worksheets

• Yearly smoking calendar
• Space and wood calculator
• First-season plan
• Smoking log
• Shopping list