For attention of lovers of smoked meats in special stores, a wide range of different factory smokehouses is presented. With their help, you can process pieces of meat and fish. Today, almost every owner of a summer house or home garden practices smoking meat at home in a smokehouse.
A product prepared in this way has a special taste and aroma. Those who want to save money may not purchase a factory smokehouse for meat, but use a home-made one, having made it using improvised material.
What is the principle of smoking?
This procedure is the heat treatment of products: meat or fish. The main task in this process is carried out by the smoke generated from the decay of sawdust or large pieces, which gives the products a peculiar aroma. In addition, an antibacterial and antioxidant effect is achieved: meat or fish soaked in smoke are partially dehydrated, as a result of which their shelf life is significantly extended.
Types of smoking
Smokehouse for meat can be used for cold and hot smoking. In the first case, the meat is smoked for two to six days. The temperature should not exceed 25 degrees. Despite the fact that in the process of cold smoking, impregnation of meat products with fat is excluded, which increases their shelf life, this processing method is rarely used. Most often, smoked smokehouse is used for meat smoking.
The meat should be thoroughly grated with salt and spices before starting the procedure. In addition, it must be infused for at least five hours in the cold. Hot smoked meat is smoked at a temperature of up to one hundred and twenty degrees. In this case, the product is impregnated with fat without dehydration. As a result, after just a few hours, any meat in the smokehouse will be ready.
Hot Smoked Pork Recipe
To prepare this dish, you will need:
- 10 kg of pork meat. You can buy a scapular part.
- Garlic (2-3 prongs).
- Nitrate (10 g).
- Sugar (30 g).
- Ground black pepper (2 g).
- Red ground pepper (2 g).
- Salt (300 g).
The smoked meat recipe in a smokehouse consists of several successive steps. When using salt, saltpeter, sugar and spices, for a start you need to prepare a mixture, which in the future will be rubbed thoroughly washed and dried piece of pork. Next, the meat, processed with spices and sprinkled with chopped garlic, is kept under pressure in a special pickling container for three hours. This container must first be in a warm place. After this, the pieces should be turned over and put in the same container for a week in the cold. During this period, it is recommended to turn the pork several more times. After five to seven days, it is recommended to soak the meat. To do this, you need to pour cold water in a large container for four hours. Then the pork should be removed and with a knife equipped with special slots for a thin hemp rope, on which the meat will be aired for another three hours.
Smoke pork preferably by first wrapping it in paper. This will protect the product from soot. The smoking procedure is carried out at a temperature of 50 degrees. The process of preparing meat for smoke processing takes a lot of time. However, smoking itself lasts no more than four hours.
What is a smokehouse for meat?
By their design, products for processing products with smoke are simple. The meat smokehouse is a closed, mainly metal container, for which a tight-fitting lid is provided. The product is equipped with a metal grill on which the product is placed: meat or fish. It is important that the pieces lie in one layer and not come into contact with each other. Fat flows into a special pan located below. At the bottom of the smokehouse, wood chips or sawdust are laid out, which, having no access to oxygen, begin to smolder and emit a large amount of smoke from the high temperature coming from below.
How to make a smokehouse from a barrel?
Anyone who wants to make a meat smokehouse at home can use a metal barrel. This version of the smokehouse is considered the simplest. First you need to cut off the lid from the barrel. Later it will be used as a tray for fat. Then, with the help of a grinder, you need to cut an opening in the barrel under the chimney. In its upper part, you need to install a grate on which pieces of meat and fish will be laid out. This grill can also be equipped with hooks, which are convenient for hanging fish.
Anyone who wants to process more products at once with smoke, a barrel, like any other home-made smokehouse, can be equipped with several grates. It is important that the distance between them is at least 200 mm.
The lower part of the barrel is equipped with special holes through which ash will pour out. The barrel is covered with a wooden lid or burlap. You can install such a homemade smokehouse on bricks. Then a chimney is attached to the fixture. For its manufacture, you can use a tube or refractory brick.
Firebox manufacturing
The fuel combustion procedure will be carried out in a special stove. In order to make it, you will need a refractory brick, which is often coated with clay from the outside.
The furnace is connected to the stove using a chimney. The temperature of the smoke will remain high if the chimney is bricked and sheathed with sheet metal. Some owners of homemade smokers smoke chimneys are also covered with earth.
Product for smoking from a bucket
Small volumes of meat or fish can be prepared using an iron bucket. It will become the basis for the simplest camping smokehouse, and will also help to understand the principle by which smoking is carried out. Wood chips are laid out at the bottom. The bucket itself should be installed on a brick pallet. At the top of the bucket there is a metal grill with meat or fish. From above, it is tightly closed by a lid. After the meat products are laid out on a wire rack, and the bottom is covered with chips and the bucket is covered with a lid, it can be put on fire.
Constructions from an old fridge and washing machine
Judging by the numerous reviews of smoked meat lovers, old refrigerators proved to be quite good as smokers. To do this, they must first be freed from compressors, tubes, freezers, plastic and thermal insulation. Only one steel casing must remain, to which the chimney is connected.
You can smoke meat, sausage and fish in a converted old refrigerator. The latter is conveniently blown with smoke, hanging on special hooks.
The principle of operation also consists in heating wood chips, but with the help of electric stoves. Judging by the reviews of the owners of smokehouses made from refrigerators, the heating process is quite lengthy.
In the absence of an old refrigerator or barrel, smoked meat lovers can use an outdated washing machine. To do this, the master will have to free her from the engine and relay. The hole for the motor shaft in it will have to be expanded: it will be used as a chimney. The drain hole in the smokehouse will be a drain for fat. The cover of the washing machine, especially if it is metal, it is advisable to leave it in place. In the event that it is in poor condition, it can be replaced with a damp cloth or fresh branches.
What should be considered during smoking?
Everyone can cook delicious smoked meats from fish and meat, even without much experience. In order not to spoil the product, it is very important to adhere to the following recommendations:
- Any wood can be used as fuel. However, in order for the smoke to be aromatic, the smoldering chips must be from juniper or alder. Judging by the reviews, a very aromatic smoke is obtained from the burning of oak, maple, birch and apple chips. If desired, they can be combined.
- Before refueling the smokers with chips, it is recommended to remove all the bark from them, since it contains a lot of resins, which is undesirable for products. Also, it is not recommended to use conifers for smoking. Otherwise, the cooked meat will turn out to be bitter and will smell like tar.
- Many smoking lovers say that a round or rectangular chamber keeps the heat best.
- As covers for smokers, branches from cherry, willow, willow and raspberry are suitable. Smokehouses should be covered with those branches that are odorless and do not secrete juice.
- The branches on the top of the smokehouse can determine the readiness of the dish. Meat can be removed if the leaves on the branches noticeably faded.
- In order for the meat to have a good aroma, the owners of smokehouses advise using currant leaves. The taste of old meat will noticeably improve if you use horseradish leaves.
Conclusion
To please yourself and your loved ones with fragrant and delicious dishes, you do not need to be the owner of a factory specialty smokehouse. If you have the tool and the necessary material, the smoking device can be made at home.