[Sca-cooks] Re: smoking meat

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> It just occurred to me that in a stove wood doesn't start to burn until it
> is over 212 degrees F and that it begins emitting smoke about 300 degrees
F.
> Oxidation is somewhere around 500 degrees F, IIRC.
>
> That means that the source of the smoke in a smoke house needs to be close
> to 300 degrees F and that over time it will attempt to raise the
temperature
> of its surroundings to that level.  Hmmm, I need a smokehouse and a bunch
of
> thermocouples for a little research into "Thermal Efficiencies of
> Carbonaceous Vapor Dehydration Structures."
>
> Bear

Bear, the temperature at which wood burns is incidental- although if you
think a minute, paper burns at 451 f. Now why would I expect you to know
something embedded in the culture like that?

;-)

What happens with a cool smoker is that the smoky wood burns, yes, but aside
from and below the foods to be cool smoked. It's quite possible to enter one
and check on the foods- it's warm, but not terribly warm- just hold your
breath. A properly set up smoker has the drafts set up so that the smoke
cools before it contacts the foods being smoked. If the smoke ISN'T cooled,
the whole thing would burn down, since most are made of cheap wood on a
cinderblock base.

Saint Phlip,
CoDoLDS

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....