Smoking Meat and Fish

Salt-cure the meat or fish before smoking (see Salt Curing Meat). This is ESSENTIAL for cold smoking, which flavours and preserves without cooking and would otherwise hold raw food in the bacterial danger zone. Use curing salt (nitrite) for anything cold-smoked.

Rinse off the cure, pat dry, and air-dry the surface in a cool, airy spot (or uncovered in the fridge) for a few hours until it feels tacky. This skin — the 'pellicle' — is what the smoke sticks to.

Burn seasoned HARDWOOD or fruitwood — oak, hickory, apple, cherry, alder, beech, maple. NEVER resinous conifers (pine, fir, spruce) or treated/painted wood: they give an acrid, sooty taste and harmful compounds.

COLD SMOKE below 30 °C for cured preservation and flavour — the food stays raw, so it MUST be cured first; smoke for several hours up to a day or more. HOT SMOKE at 60–90 °C to cook as it smokes — take meat to 71 °C internal and fish to 63 °C — it's safe to eat but keeps only a few days refrigerated.

Cold-smoked cured products keep for weeks hung in a cool, dry place or refrigerated. Hot-smoked food is like any cooked food — refrigerate and eat within a few days, or freeze. Discard anything that smells off or grows mould.