Safety and storing smoked food

In short

• Trichinella: pork, wild boar and bear only with a negative test result. Smoke, salt, drying and a home freezer don't reliably kill it.
• Curing salt is weighed (roughly 13 g of 0.6 % nitrite curing salt or 1.3 g of Cure #1 per 1 kg, which is 80 mg of nitrite per kg), kept labelled and apart; never pure nitrite or saltpetre.
• Tar and PAHs: hardwood, smouldering without flame, a channel, dry meat; cut off a black crust.
• Carbon monoxide and fire: smoke only outdoors, the smokehouse apart from other buildings, an extinguisher or sand next to it.
• Dry smoked products hang at 8–12 °C (46–54 °F), in the dark and in a draught, in a muslin bag from March; hot-smoked food goes into the fridge.
• Pregnant women, small children, the elderly and the sick eat smoked meat and fish only cooked or fried.

What's inside

Chapters

1. All the hazards in one place
2. Meat before the smoke
3. PAHs, tar and the crust
4. Carbon monoxide and fire
5. At-risk groups and how to eat it
6. Where and how smoked food is stored
7. Pests and mould in the larder
8. Signs of spoilage
9. Inventory and order of use
10. Common mistakes
11. Printable checklist

Worksheets

• Smoked food inventory
• Family needs calculator
• Calendar for checks and use
• Larder log
• Spoilage card
• Labels for stores