Why smoke meat

This is all well and good, but that does melting fat and making tender briskets have to do with smoking meat? Smoking is the process by which we achieve the delightful meat jello and rendered fat.

The smoke created from burning hardwood breaks down the cellulose in said wood. This cellulose turns into sugar, which caramelizes creating flavor. When you cook any meat, the iron molecules oxidize and turn from red to brown in what is known as the Maillard Reaction When you smoke, instead of an abundance of oxygen molecules to turn your meat brown, you have carbon dioxide CO2 and nitric oxide NO.

Instead of oxidizing the NO molecules bond to the outside of the meat leaving a beautiful pink ring, because the molecules just happen to be pink. But it does, and now you know it too. This is an effect that does not occur when simply grilling meat. The smoke from the wood also effects the flavor of the meat, changing the internal color to a light pink as smoke is imparted into the muscle tissue. The benefits of smoking are clearly apparent when the meat is tasted, but it is possible that this trend only caught on recently because smoking is not as easy as it seems.

For example, smoking most food requires a much longer cook time with more attention paid to the temperature of the grill. That is why many grill companies have taken the time to design grills that monitor and automate the smoke input and temperature. Smoked meats and fish have long been considered a delicacy on the gourmet food scene thanks to their deep and intense flavour enriched from the smoking process. At Weald Smokery, the exquisite taste of our products comes from our traditional method of burning locally-sourced oak, whose flavour is absorbed by foods like our smoked duck breasts and smoked rainbow trout.

We have no need to espouse the taste benefits of eating a smoked salmon bagel or smoked bacon sandwich, as they speak for themselves, but what other benefits could smoked foods bring to the table? The types of food which see the inside of our tailor-made kiln are often those which are naturally high in protein and amino acids — meat and fish especially. By creating nutritious high-protein foods which are enjoyable to eat, smoked food makes a great addition to any balanced diet.

Smoked fish , in particular, is rich in nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, whilst many smoked meats have a high iron content. At the end of the smoking process, the meat and poultry should meet the same cooking temperatures as the traditional cooking methods.

Beef and pork roasts must have a temperature of Fahrenheit. Poultry needs to have a final temperature of F, but hot-smoked fish must have a final temperature between F to F. This is higher than the traditional cooking temperature of F. The purpose of hot smoking is to slowly cook and add flavor to meat and poultry. Since smoking has only a partial food preservation effect, fully cooked products need to be handled just like freshly cooked meat. The final product needs to be served right away or refrigerated.

To cool the meat quickly, large pieces need to be cut into smaller ones. The refrigerated smoked meat product has a refrigeration shelf life of three to four days. The freezer is the best option for long term storage of smoked meat, but the freezer shelf life is not as long as that of fresh cooked meat products.

To produce hot smoked fish requires brining, smoking, and cooking the fish to an internal temperature of F for 30 minutes.

It should be kept no longer than two weeks. For long-term storage, freeze the fish.