[Sca-cooks] Re: smoking meat

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> A thermally efficient building would rise to just below the temperature of
> the heat source (a thermal mass oven?).  As you point out, smokehouses
> aren't thermally efficient.  The meat is hung at a distance above the heat
> source so the surface temperature of the meat is probably a function of
the
> inverse square of the distance with a number of other variables tossed in.
>
> Color me weird, but I think it would be fun to measure the temperature of
> the heat source and the surface and internal temperature of the meat in a
> smokehouse to study the process and check the various numbers that are out
> there.
>
> Bear

Honestly, Bear, I suspect the temperature of the heat source is incidental-
once it reaches a critical temperature, the temperature for the fuel to both
emit smoke and to maintain a self-sustaining fire (fuel being added as
necessary, of course) you're set. After that, you need sufficient distance
to maintain the foodstuffs at a preferred temperature. I'm sure there's a
formula, but the folks I know who use smokehouses do it by experience.

Most recommendations for smoking fires are for a small, hot fire, made of
fruitwood- the major difference in a smoking fire for Smithfield hams is
that corn cobs are added for flavor. What IS important, is making the fire
hot enough that there isn't _too much_ smoke- otherwise, you might as well
dip the foods in creosote, and be done with it.

Part of the reason for the long, slow smoking is to give the flavoring
elements an opportunity to penetrate the meat fibers. If you notice, most
foods which are hot-smoked have the flavor on the outside, whereas properly
cool-smoked foods have the flavor throughout- and I'm not just talking the
salt from the preparatory brine soak.

Fires are funny things- they may _start_ at a certain minimum temperature,
but differences in fuel and air input can make wide differences in the
amount of heat they put out. As an example, coal generally burns hotter than
wood or charcoal, all things being equal. During my pilgrimages with my
forge this summer,  the most frequently asked question I got from people
visiting my forge, was if my preferred fuel, charcoal, would get hot enough
to weld. Not only was I welding on that fire, but my usual method of
disposing of little bits of scrap steel, useless for any application, was to
throw it into the fire and burn it up, thus avoiding leaving trash around at
my sites.

The difference between the fire most of you use on your barbecues, and my
barbecue-with-an-attitude (as I called it, to relieve the minds of nervous
autocrats and site owners) is that I was forcing air into the fire, and
increasing the temps from about 500 f to about 2000 f. And, of course, I had
them all bewildered when simultaneously heating my coffee pot over the fire
without burning it ;-)

Incidently, as Adamantius was mentioning smoking jalepenos to make them
chipotles- that's another cool-smoke method, intended for preservation,
although, obviously, it takes much less time to smoke a few peppers than an
entire ham. The reason chipotles are smoked is because of their fleshy
nature. Most hot peppers are fairly thin fleshed, and can be easily
sun-dried. Chipotles, however, because of their thicker flesh can't be,
without risking molds and such invading them during the drying period.

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....