Cold Smoker

[somapop]

Anything cold smoked will benefit from a bit of maturing time. Although with bacon just a day or two seems alright For cured stuff anything above 15C is a no no, wouldn't cold smoke anything that hasn't been cured

Cheers Dave - will start on the bacon tonight, but leave the butter with the cheese to mature (might pull just one block at the two week mark!).

Anything over 15c? Looks like a small window for cold smoking in the year then? Even for cheese?
Going slightly off piste here (and will pick up the aforementioned curing/smoking books) but is there any reason I shouldn't have cold smoked those (non cured) sausages? Health risk or general 'not worth it/taste' issue?
EDIT - I intended to cook those sausages rather than eat them raw (under the false presumption the smoke had cured them!)

Many thanks.

[YetiDave]

Botulism tends to like low oxygen environments and bacteria start to develop once temps get past 3 or 4 celcius. You can get away with cold smoking for a decent amount of the year if you stick evenings for shorter smokes and overnight for things like bacon. But yeah, if it's not had at least a salt cure I'd be wary of food poisoning from cold smoking things like uncured sausage. The 15C thing is the maximum safe temp for cured meats, 3 or 4 for uncured

Not sure what temps you can get away with smoking cheese at, but it'll be much more resilient to change than meat

[somapop]

Jesus....botulism! One of the reasons I knocked garlic infused oil on the head!

It was pretty cold outside on Saturday but from what you've written I'll forgo the eating process

Night smokes - of course. I'll keep an eye on outdoor temps. Likely I'll be mostly using the cold smoker for cheeses, dry cured bacons and salmon in the short term.
I think avocados would work well - I made some guacamole at the weekend and I think a light smoke flavour in that would lift it nicely.

Cheers Dave!

[YetiDave]

Yeah, it used to be known as the 'sausage sickness' (apparently the name botulism actually comes from the Latin word for sausage) It's really rare as I'm sure you know, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. But there ya go, one good excuse for making your own sausages and including cure #1 in there to prevent nasty botulism

[somapop]

Yeah, I guess it's quite rare but can be particularly nasty...so I'll stay well clear

But there ya go, one good excuse for making your own sausages and including cure #1 in there to prevent nasty botulism

Are you talking about 'cured' sausages here (as in salami, chorizo etc) rather than the usual mince and associated ingredients? Definitely want to look into that, but was put off at one time with the usual scare stories (actually I think it was that BBQ bible site...the extraordinarily detailed BBQ/Smoking site...name escapes me. I think given his level of commitment the fact he wasn't brave enough to cure meats, put me off a little. However, something I will pursue (grabbing a copy of the mentioned book/s).

Cure #1 - is that with both nitrates and nitrites as opposed to the stuff I have (Prague cure #2) for the bacon?

Cheese locked down but the smoked bacon was excellent - had some last night. Best I've ever made!
Wondering if I could cold smoke some ham/bacon/gammon then hot smoke - conflicting flavours or a winner?

Cheers.

[somapop]

I get wood dust from hotsmoked.co.uk - it's £8.50/kg. Not bad considering a full 12-14 hour burn uses less than 100g

Cheers for this link. Not a bad price really. I ordered some last week from here. 500g Oak £4.50 and 500g £5.50 whisky oak (plus they threw in an extra bag of maple wood dust).
P&P at a fiver takes it up a little...but I should get a fair few months out of this lot.

Any tests with the whisky oak? Think bacon would work well with that flavour. Salmon too...on which note...is there a good linkie/recommended method recipe for cold smoking salmon on here? I've a few decent recipes, but perhaps not one definitive one considering it's most likely (at this time) I'll be using farmed salmon (as opposed to sushi grade).

Thinking a 4 hour salt/sugar cure, dry for 24 hours then cold smoke for 24 hours (keeping an eye on outside temps).

Cheers!

[SmokeyBBQYum]

Its looks like Weber are bringing out a Cold Smoker for next year.

http://www.bbqs2u.co.uk/home/497-weber- ... 17636.html

Seems like a well designed unit for a decent price.

[Midlandsman]

I get wood dust from hotsmoked.co.uk - it's £8.50/kg. Not bad considering a full 12-14 hour burn uses less than 100g

Another supplier of wood for the ProQ CSG is Ashwood at Kettering:

http://www.ashwood-smoking.co.uk/

A group at sausagemaking.org bought about 80kg of oak, beech and apple for about £55.

HTH

MM