[Sca-cooks] Smoke Essence.

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

I thought maybe someone else that had seen the Good Eats jerky episode would
have mentioned it by now, but since they havn't, here goes:
During the aforementioned episode, Alton goes on a short tangent talking
about making his own liquid smoke.  He uses a chimenea on a patio.  Out of
the top he attaches a 40-foot ductwork section, with foil crimped around the
join with the top of the chimenea and again at the top.  He then places a
bundt pan over the opening at the top of the piece of ductwork, an then a
stainless mixing bowl inverted over the bundt pan.  The object is to funnel
the smoke up through the hole in the bundt pan and have it caught in the
bowl.  He then does a classic trick for distilling, placing a zip top bag
full of ice on top of the bowl.  Lighting a fire in the chimenea and putting
chunks of his favorite wood on the fire, the smoke is caught in the bowl in
the condensation caused by the ice on top of the bowl, then drips down the
side of the bowl and into the bundt pan, collecting in little puddles of
liquid smoke.  A pretty slick device, although I'm not sure it is worth the
effort unless you really want to be sure you aren't buying a bottle of
chemicals.
Christianna

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces+kingstaste=mindspring.com at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces+kingstaste=mindspring.com at ansteorra.org]On
Behalf Of lilinah at earthlink.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 11:07 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Smoke Essence.


Vladimir wrote:
>  What exactly is Smoke essence?

I've got several bottles of what i'm used to calling "Liquid Smoke"
in my pantry... One only needs to use very few drops to a recipe for
an average sized family. It has a "flat" rather than complex flavor,
but there are times when one wants to add the taste and smell of
smoke to suggest that something has been smoked or cooked over a wood
fire and this is handy when one just has no way to do this - Useful
when one lives in an urban apartment, like me.

Here's what the label says:
Wright's
Concentrated
All Natural
Hickory Seasoning
Liquid Smoke
More than twice as concentrated as the other leading brands
3.5 Fl.Oz (103 ml)
(and it's kosher - got a U in a circle)

On the back it just says "Wright's Hickory Seasoning"

It says it contains water and natural hickory smoke concentrate. I
guess that's basically the creosote from burnt hickory wood :-)

I've got a couple bottles because i had a bottle, couldn't find it
when i needed it, so i got another... They last a LONG time -
although i noticed there's some precipitate in at least one of the
bottles - could be 3-1/2 years old or more.

--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
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