[Sca-cooks] Smoker

[Elaine Koogler]

That's about what I remember from the way my grandfather smoked meat...they
did it in a smoke house, the meat was hung up next to the ceiling of the
building and there was a low, smokey fire on the ground.  This was usually
done in November, but definitely after the first frost.  The smoke house
session would be shared by several of my father's brothers who also
butchered at the same time.

It is always fun to see historical foody things discussed here that remind
me of the way I remember seeing it done as a child...I know, that makes me
sound like I'm 400 years old...but it's more a case of continuity!

Kiri

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Daniel Schneider <macbrighid at campus.ie>wrote:

> Hiya!
>
> The thing to remember about preservative smoking is that it's aimed at
> insects, not microbes.We did a fair amount of smoking at Sturbridge, and as
> I recall (CAVEAT: this was about ten years ago, so I may be off on some of
> the details), food that was cured by dry salting would be hung in *cool*
> smoke to have a layer of smoke residue (we used corn cobs) laid down on the
> surface, to keep bugs from laying eggs in the meat. It's possible that the
> smoke *may* have had some effect in pulling any residual moisture from the
> meat, but considering thefact that the meat would have been buried in salt
> for several weeks previously, I wouldn't think there would have been much
> residual moisture in the first place... The biggest problem I'd forsee with
> using a modern smoker would be keeping the meat from getting too warm. We'd
> do the smoking in the late fall, and we'd try to keep the temp inside the
> smokehouse about the same as the ambient air temp: The smokehouse was about
> the size of a single-occupant outhouse, with the meat hung near the roof,
> and the smoke coming from corncobs smouldering in a (approx)3-quart iron
> kettle on the floor. I'm not sure how you'd be able to get the low
> temps with a small modern smoker
>
> Dan
>
>