The smoking of products has been practiced by mankind since ancient times. This is due to the fact that it is so possible to preserve perishable products that acquire wonderful taste. People over the past few centuries have stepped far forward in terms of the technologies used, but they also continue to smoke meat and fish. The main role in smoking is played by the smoke of the wood of fruit trees. It is he who gives a unique flavor to the finished product. Do not worry about the acquisition of a smokehouse, since it is quite easy to build a smoke generator with your own hands. There are many designs available for repetition even to inexperienced people in such matters.
Types and technologies of smoking
There are two types of different smoking technology: cold and hot. They differ in temperature at which the process of preparation of the product takes place. If during hot smoking the temperature can reach 95 0 , then in cold it should not be higher than 35 0 .
Hot smoked
The method consists in the fact that the products are placed in a container where they are processed with hot smoke, baked and smoked at the same time. The process is quite fast, it takes, as a rule, several hours, and the output is unusually delicate, aromatic and tasty products. However, such products can not be stored for long, just a couple of days in the refrigerator.
Production of smoking equipment
How to make a smoke generator for smoking in a hot way? Yes, very simple. In this case, the smoke generator and the smoking chamber can be combined. Because smoke cooling is not required. A metal bucket with a lid, a large pan or barrel is suitable. Sawdust or chips are poured at the bottom, and the smokehouse is placed on a fire or an electric stove.
Smoke emission and heating of the raw material occur simultaneously. With good sealing of the smokehouse, or when using a water lock, the smoking process does not require special control. It is enough to choose the temperature regime at which the products will not burn.
Cold smoked
This method involves both a more thorough preparation of the raw material and a longer treatment with smoke. This is due to the use of chilled smoke, the temperature of which should not exceed 35 0 C. Products before laying in the smokehouse must be well salted, and then also dried. The use of wet raw materials in cold smoking is unacceptable, because the smoke will dissolve in moisture, and the cooking process will take much longer.
The nuances of smoking
The process of cold smoking is much more multifaceted. There are a lot of nuances, reservations, and a lot depends on the skill of the “cook”. Any of the technological operations can be reproduced in different ways, and each time the result will be different from the previous one.
Even a smoke generator made by yourself for smoking can significantly affect the taste of the products. Different designs of smoke produce with different intensities, respectively, and smoking will take place in different ways. As at the dawn of mankind, the most important thing in smoking is smoke. It is to him that the products owe a golden brown crust and unique taste. Let's consider this component in more detail.
How to get smoke
The smoke itself, as mentioned above, is obtained from chips or sawdust of some wood species. As a rule, these are fruit trees: cherry, apple tree, pear. But you can use alder and willow for this. Cold smoked smoke generator can handle any material. The taste, smell, and color of the resulting smoked products depend on which smoke is selected. Here everyone decides for himself which wood to choose, and, as a rule, dwells on one thing.
Smoke Generator Designs
Homemade smoking smoke generators are diverse in design, but they are all very simple to repeat. They are divided into two large groups depending on which heat source is used: electricity or open fire. The simplest smoke generator for smoking, made by yourself, is a small metal box with an output, on which a corrugated pipe is put on to remove smoke. Sawdust is placed in it, and it is put on open fire. When exposed to high temperature, the chips begin to smolder slowly without oxygen. With all its simplicity, these types of devices are quite difficult to use. Since the smoking process can take several days, and sometimes even several weeks, it is quite difficult to control the emission of smoke, including its continuous supply.
Such designs do not allow you to quickly add sawdust and control the temperature of the smoke in the smokehouse. The smoke generator for cold smoking, which has an electric element, has been eliminated from this drawback. In this case, it is possible to control both the temperature of the incoming smoke and the process of setting fire to sawdust - an electronic control unit serves for this. Structurally, this is the same small box with an outlet for a pipe, but inside it has a spiral or heating element from an electric stove. After a certain time (usually a couple of hours), the heater heats up, and the sawdust begins to smolder, thus emitting smoke. There are smoke generators made according to the principle of the muffle. At the same time, a spiral of nichrome is wound on an asbestos-cement pipe . Each new coil is insulated with fiberglass, and the whole structure is closed with tin on top. This solution allows you to easily very quickly heat sawdust to the temperature at which they begin to smolder.
The muffle also maintains temperature for a while, allowing smoke to be released after the heat is turned off. In this case, a thermal sensor can be built into the smokehouse itself, which will turn off the heater when the maximum temperature of 35 degrees is reached. Such a design does not require the constant presence of a person to control the process, it is quite simple sometimes to add sawdust to a makeshift smoke generator for smoking. These are the most advanced smoke detectors. If you plan to constantly use a smokehouse, then such smoke generators are the best choice.
How to cool the smoke
After the smoke is received, it must be cooled to the required temperature. This can be done in different ways, the most popular of which is laying a chimney in a cold water tank. Usually in this case, a smoke generator is used for smoking, made for open fire. Also, the chimney can be buried in the ground, which is also able to cool the smoke very well. There are structures where the chimney is represented by a trench in the ground, covered from above, so that smoke does not come out.
Passing along such a course, it cools down, and smoking takes place in normal cold mode. This method of cooling smoke is used in field conditions where it is very difficult to find a corrugated pipe and a large capacity tank for water. Smoke generator (assembled by yourself) with an electric heating element, as a rule, does not need to cool the smoke. The temperature sensor is able to turn off heating when it reaches a critical temperature, supporting the smoking process and not overheating the raw materials.