Food Smoking & Drying at Home - Tips & Techniques

Inspired by Ramjet and adamaus's recent posts about making home made Beef Jerky https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2928, I wanted to dedicate a topic for sharing recipes, tips, techniques and home made food smoking & drying contraptions.

I know a few of you guys are already smoking and dehydrating your own food so I'm really looking forward to reading all the replies.

Nugget.

Starting with the basics.
You can smoke food in almost anything. A hooded BBQ is something most people have.
A simple method is to get sawdust, at Bunnies or your local BBQ shop.
Get a sheet of foil, place about half a cup of sawdust on it and wrap it into a rough ball.
Poke a few small holes in it to allow the smoke to escape.
Place it directly onto one of the burners in the BBQ. Now you're smoking
The small holes allow the smoke to escape but not enough air gets in for the sawdust to burst into flame. It just smolders away. Lid down on BBQ to keep the smoke in.
Other than the foil you can use an empty can, a small, old cast iron frypan or saucepan or buy a tray as in the pic below.
Hot smoking just cook as normal.
For cold smoking or drying Jerky, place the container of sawdust or wood chips on a burner, set to low, at one and of the BBQ and your food at the other.
You may have to prop the BBQ lid open a little to stop it getting too hot and create air flow.
All you want for drying jerky is warm, dry, smoky air.
Top up sawdust as needed.

Rod,

I finished the cold smoker as re your advice.

I have it going in the garage seeing as there is a total fire ban. I have put some rashers of bacon in for a couple of hours just to see how it goes

Cheers Pete

Cool Pete. Any pics?

Rod,
No pics as I fell on my camera at the WRC &broke it.Gotta save the penny's for new one.

I have not soldered the piping so I can stow it easier will use a cardboard box as a smoke box when travelling.
I don't loose much smoke at the joints & there seems to be adequate smoke going into the box.
I will thow it in for Nundle & you can have a look,& make any suggestions if needed.

Pete

Great Pete. I'll bring my 2 along as well.
You will find that with a bit of use the build up of sticky residue will seal the leaks in the pipes and you will struggle to get them apart.

Types of smoker.

There are many types of smoker for cold or hot smoking or both.
As stated in an earlier post you can smoke food in almost anything.

A gas BBQ with a hooded lid is maybe the easiest and cheapest if you already have one.
Then you have the kettle type BBQ. The best known is probably Weber brand. There is very little you cannot do with a kettle BBQ. Very versatile.I have 2. One came with a gas burner which I have never used. Real bbqs are stick burners.

Then there are cabinet smokers. These can be very basic. Just a metal box with a heat and smoke source. They can use gas, wood or heat beads for heat and smoke.
They can be very complex. All the way up to computer controlled with small fans which switch on and off to adjust temperature. They can show a graph of all the temp rises and falls. Have 'biscuit' type wood discs that get fed in automatically as needed.

Then there are the 'offset smokers'. Two barrels joined together. The small barrel has the fire and the larger one holds the food. This is to allow better temperature control. These are very popular in the U.S of A. They come in all sizes from standard back yard BBQ to small fuel truck sized monsters.
Of course being American they can be very elaborate with multiple cooking areas, hot running water and outrageous designs.

There are also devices that burn sawdust or wood chips to be added to any type of smoker. A popular type is the A-maze-smoker. Pic below.

Also for those who like to tinker in the shed there are as many types of smoker as there are sluices and high bankers. Commonly called UDS or Ugly Drum Smoker. The T shaped on in the pic below is pretty popular.
Only restricted by your imagination.
Then there is the cold smoker. It can be used in any of the above types of smoker or to cold smoke foods in any container from a cardboard box to plastic crates etc etc.
If you a keen to get into smoking then do the usual research. YouTube is great.
The Aussie BBQ forum is also a great resource.
http://www.aussiebbq.info/forum/index.php?sid=878a390eb35a4bb5e6e79c68fdc0ffe8

Got a leg of lamb in the weber as we speak

Below are pictures of various smokers.

Cabinet smoker.



Cold smoker



UDS (ugly drum smoker)



The A-maze-n smoker



Offset smokers. Yes the motorbike is a smoker.

Thanks Rod,

I had a Brinkman Smoker years ago when I was with Qantas, I it bought in the states but it finally wore out.
I am on the way to your place with a set of cutlery & some mint sauce!,

The Amazin smoker might be the go .

Pete

Oh... Forgot the mint sauce. Thanks Pete

Hey everyone.
I've had a couple or three requests on how I make my bacon so in the coming weeks I'll do my best to post up here the method I use for success. Not too hard and all it needs is a bit of time and patience.

I'm pretty busy and I'll do my best and will eventually get there.
In the meantime here's a few teaser shots.

Mmmmm bacon. Lookin good HL

So guys and gals. I do have a few kg of bellies waiting to be made into bacon and last night I bumped into these at a pretty good price at my local store.
What we call over here pork scotch is more commonly known as pork butt over in the US. So I picked up this lot to make some Hillbilly Bacon (keep the comments about banjos and "squeal like a pig boy" to yourselves) lol...
Tomorrow night or the night after I'll make a wet brine and go through the recipe and process I use.
I love this cut as it can either be bacon or ham after it is processed.

Love to see your recipe/method when ya get time HL.

would love to see your technique and recipe mate, of course when you have the time to HL

Before I go any further I'll say that I use the book called. Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. There are plenty of other books out there and I'm sure they are just as good. But this is one I got and am happy with it.
This batch will be made using a wet brine. And it calls for "pink salt".
I use pink salt in all my methods.
There is a recipe for a basic wet brine in the book and I used that.
Recipe is:

For every 4 litres of water
200 gm salt
125 gm sugar
42 gm pink salt

I made up six litres as I know from previous experience how much I roughly need. Made it last night and let it cool to room temp.
Today I got the pork out and placed it in a food safe container. As I put each piece in I injected it thoroughly with the same mix. This is so the cure gets right into the meat.
Covered the meat with a plate and put the container in the fridge. Usually seven days is enough but I'll be smoking this in a couple of weekends.

HL- looking forward to follow-ons

No worries BigWave.
I'm looking forward to eating it..lol.
Just trying to show how easy it is.

Might just have to drop by and try some

Don't smoke or you will die at home.

BigWave said:

Might just have to drop by and try some

Click to expand...

Sure mate. if you are ever driving through or in the area, pm me.Never know what may be cooking out here.