Hot smoking, step by step
Interactive lesson: salt by the scale, dry, smoke and cook in the same chamber, measure the centre with a thermometer and cool it in time.
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The whole lesson as text
1. Three stages in one chamber
Hot smoking is done in one afternoon: the meat is dried, smoked and cooked in the same chamber.
- Drying without smoke — Chamber at 40–50 °C (105–120 °F), 30–60 minutes, outlet open. The surface must be dry so the smoke sticks.
- Smoke for 1–3 hours — Chamber at 55–70 °C (130–160 °F), outlet half open. Longer smoke gives bitterness, not a better product.
- Cooking in the chamber — Chamber at 75–90 °C (165–195 °F) until the centre reaches the target: pork 72 °C (160 °F), poultry 74 °C (165 °F).
- Outdoors only — Drums and cabinets full of embers give off a lot of carbon monoxide. Never in a garage or shed; keep an extinguisher or a bucket of sand by the smoker.
Why: A hot-smoked product is cooked meat, not a dry sausage. While it heats up, it passes through the temperatures at which bacteria grow fastest. That's why you work by the thermometer, not by colour.
- Every opening of the door drops the chamber by 10–20 °C. That's why you want a probe on a cable.
- The centre should reach 60 °C (140 °F) within 4–6 hours of going into the chamber.
2. Salting by the scale
The meat is salted before the smoke, exactly for its weight.
- Weigh the meat — Scale first, then the sums. For a dry cure you work per kilo of meat.
- Curing salt and plain salt — Per 1 kg: 13 g of nitrite curing salt (0.6 %) and 7 g of plain non-iodised salt, plus 5 g of sugar; or 1.3 g of Cure #1 and 19 g of plain salt. For poultry 5 g of plain salt (17 g with Cure #1).
- Equilibrium brine — For a brine, weigh the meat and water together. Example: 2 kg of collar and 1.5 L of water = 3.5 kg × 13 g = 45.5 g of nitrite curing salt.
- Keep it cold and turn it — Curing happens at 2–4 °C (36–39 °F), in a stainless, glass or food-grade plastic container, not aluminium. Turn it every day or every other day.
Why: In an equilibrium cure the salt is measured for the weight, so the product can't end up too salty however long it sits. Nitrite gives the pink colour, the cured taste and extra protection in the fridge.
- Curing salt is weighed, never measured by the spoon. Keep it labelled, apart from kitchen salt and out of children's reach.
- For pork you need a negative Trichinella result, even for meat that will be cooked.
3. Collar and ribs · Locked
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4. Cooked smoked ham · Locked
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5. Poultry from the smoker · Locked
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6. Cooling and keeping · Locked
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