Food Commodities 08

Smoked Meat

Smoked meat is a method of preparing red meat (and fish) which originates in prehistory. its purpose is to preserve these protein-rich food, which would otherwise spoil quickly, for long periods. There are two mechanisms for this preservation: dehydration and the antibacterial properties of phenols and other chemicals in the absorbed smoke. In modern days, the enchanced flavor of smoked foods makes them a delicacy in many cultures.

Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meat and fish are the most common smoked foods, though cheeses, vegetables, and ingredients used to make beverages such as whisky, smoked beer, and lapsang souchong tea are also smoked.

In Europe, alder is the traditional smoking wood, but oak is more often used now, and beech to a lesser extent. In North America, hickory, mesquite, oak, pecan, alder, maple, and fruit-tree wods, such as apple, cherry, and plum, are commonly used for smoking. Other biomass beside wood can also be employed, sometimes with the addition of flavoring ingredients. Chinese tea-smoking uses a mixture of uncooked rice, sugar, and tea, heated at the base of a wok.

Some North American ham and bacon makers smoke their products over burning corncobs. Peat is burned to dry and smoke the barley malt used to make whisky and some beers. In New Zealand, Sawdust from the tea tree is commonly used for hot smoking. In Iceland, dried sheep dung is used to cold-smoke fish, lamb, mutton and whale.


The smoking of food directly with wood smoke is known to contaminate the food with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which may cause intenstinal type of gastric adenocarcinoma.

Historically, farms in the Western world included a small building termed the smoke house, where meats could be smoked and stored. This was generally well-separated from other buildings both because of the fire danger and because of the smoke emanations.


  Types of Smoking  

• Cold Smoking

Smokehouse temperatures for cold smoking are typically done between 20 to 30°C (68 to 86°C). In this temperature range, foods take on a smoked flavor, but remain relatively moist. Cold smoking does not cook foods. Meats should be fully cured before cold smoking. Cold smoking can be used as a flavor enhancer for items such as chicken breasts, beef, pork chops, salmon, scallops, and steak. The item is hung first to develop a pellicle, then can be cold smoked for just long enough to give some flavor. Some cold smoked foods are baked, grilled, steamed. roasted, or sauteed before eating.

• Hot Smoking

Hot smoking exposes the foods to smoke and heat in a controlled environment. Like cold smoking, the item is hung first to develop a pellicle, then smoked. Although foods that have been hot smoked are often reheated or cooked, they are typically safe to eat without further cooking. Hams and ham hocks are fully cooked once they are properly smoked. Hot smoking occurs within the range of 52 to 80°C (126 to 176°F). Within this temperature range, foods are fully cooked, moist, and flavorful. If the smoker is allowed to get hotter than 185 °F (85 °C), the foods will shrink excessively, buckle, or even split. Smoking at high temperatures also reduces yield, as both moisture and fat are cooked away.

• Smoke Roasting

Smoke roasting or "smoke baking" refers to any process that has the attributes of smoking combined with either roasting or baking. In North America, this smoking method is commonly referred to as "barbecuing", "pit baking", or "pit roasting". It may be done in a smoke roaster, closed wood-fired masonry oven or barbecue pit, any smoker that can reach above 180 °F (82 °C), or in a conventional oven by placing a pan filled with hardwood chips on the floor to smolder and produce a smoke bath.

   Styles of Smoking  

• Pastrami

Pastrami is a meat product usually made from pork, mutton, or turkey. The raw meat is brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. Beef plate is the traditional cut of meat for making pastrami, although it is now common in the United States to see it made from beef brisket, beef round, and turkey. Like corned beef, pastrami was originally created as a way to preserve meat before refrigeration.

• Montreal

Montreal style is a type of kosher-style deli meat product made by salting and curing beef brisket with spices. The brisket is allowed to absorb the flavours over a week, and is then hot smoked to cook through, and finally steamed to completion.

Types of Smoker  

• Offset

The main characteristics of the offset smoker are that the cooking chamber is usually cylindrical in shape, with a shorter, smaller diameter cylinder attached to the bottom of one end for a firebox. To cook the meat, a small fire is lit in the firebox, where airflow is tightly controlled. The heat and smoke from the fire is drawn through a connecting pipe or opening into the cooking chamber.

The heat and smoke cook and flavor the meat before escaping through an exhaust vent at the opposite end of the cooking chamber. Most manufacturers' models are based on this simple but effective design, and this is what most people picture when they think of a "BBQ smoker." Even large capacity commercial units use this same basic design of a separate, smaller fire box and a larger cooking chamber.

• Upright Drum

The upright drum smoker (also referred to as an ugly drum smoker or UDS) is exactly what its name suggests; an upright steel drum that has been modified for the purpose of pseudo-indirect hot smoking. There are many ways to accomplish this, but the basics include the use of a complete steel drum, a basket to hold charcoal near the bottom, and cooking rack (or racks) near the top; all covered by a vented lid of some sort. They have been built using many different sizes of steel drums, such as 30 US gallons (110 l; 25 imp gal), 55 US gallons (210 l; 46 imp gal), and 85 US gallons (320 l; 71 imp gal) for example, but the most popular size is the common 55 gallon drum.

This design is similar to smoking with indirect heat due to the distance from the coals and the racks (typically 24 inches (61 cm)). The temperatures used for smoking are controlled by limiting the amount of air intake at the bottom of the drum, and allowing a similar amount of exhaust out of vents in the lid. UDSs are very efficient with fuel consumption and flexible in their abilities to produce proper smoking conditions, with or without the use of a water pan or drip pan. Most UDS builders/users would say a water pan defeats the true pit BBQ nature of the UDS, as the drippings from the smoked meat should land on the coals, burning up, and imparting a unique flavor one cannot get with a water pan.

• Vertical Water

A vertical water smoker (also referred to as a bullet smoker because of its shape)^[8] is a variation of the upright drum smoker. It uses charcoal or wood to generate smoke and heat, and contains a water bowl between the fire and the cooking grates.^[8] The water bowl serves to maintain optimal smoking temperatures^[8] and also adds humidity to the smoke chamber. It also creates an effect in which the water vapor and smoke condense together, which adds flavor to smoked foods.^[8] In addition, the bowl catches any drippings from the meat that may cause a flare-up. Vertical water smokers are extremely temperature stable and require very little adjustment once the desired temperature has been reached. Because of their relatively low cost and stable temperature, they are sometimes used in barbecue competitions where propane and electric smokers are not allowed.

• Propane

A propane smoker is designed to allow the smoking of meat in a somewhat more controlled environment. The primary differences are the sources of heat and of the smoke. In a propane smoker, the heat is generated by a gas burner directly under a steel or iron box containing the wood or charcoal that provides the smoke. The steel box has few vent holes, on the top of the box only. By starving the heated wood of oxygen, it smokes instead of burning. Any combination of woods and charcoal may used. This method uses much less wood but does require propane fuel.

• Smoke Box

This more traditional method uses a two-box system: a fire box and a food box. The fire box is typically adjacent or under the cooking box, and can be controlled to a finer degree. The heat and smoke from the fire box exhausts into the food box, where it is used to cook and smoke the meat. These may be as simple as an electric heating element with a pan of wood chips placed on it, although more advanced models have finer temperature controls.

• Electric Smokers

The most convenient of the various types of smokers are the insulated electric smokers. These devices house a heating element that can maintain temperatures ranging from that required for a cold smoke all the way up to 275 degrees with little to no intervention from the user. Although wood chunks, pellets, and even in some case automatically fed wood pucks are used to generate smoke, the amount of flavor obtained is less than traditional wood or charcoal smokers.

• Trench

In this method the firebox is a narrow trench cut down a slope pointing into the prevailing wind. The middle part of the trench is covered over to make it into a tunnel. At the upper end of the trench is a vertical framework covered to form a chimney within which is placed the rack of foodstuff. At the lower upwind end of the trench is lit a small smokey fire, and sustained day and night until the foodstuff is cured.

• Commercial Smokehouse

Commercial smokehouses, mostly made from stainless steel, have independent systems for smoke generation and cooking. Smoke generators use friction, an electric coil or a small flame to ignite sawdust on demand. Heat from steam coils or gas flames is balanced with live steam or water sprays to control the temperature and humidity. Elaborate air handling systems reduce hot or cold spots, to reduce variation in the finished product. Racks on wheels or rails are used to hold the product and facilitate movement.

  Storing Smoked Meat  

Cut the smoked meat into smaller pieces, place into a shallow container and cover. Refrigerate within two hours and consume the meat within four days. If not consumed within four hours, freeze the meat for later use.

Sources @ http://www.smoked-meat.com/types.html

@ https://www.leaf.tv/articles/does-smoked-meat-need-to-be-refrigerated/

@ https://www.dyersbbq.com/blog/types-of-wood-used-for-smoking-and-barbecuing-meats/

@Webster's New World Dictionary of Culinary Arts by Steven Labensky, Gaye G. Ingram, Sarah R. Labensky