Wade

That looks really good. Lovely colour and it had cooked well. How was the flavour?

Hi Martin and welcome to the forum. Are you looking to hot smoke or cold smoke - or both. What have you tried so far and what else do you fancy trying? you mentioned that you have modified one BBQ into a smoker and are currently building a new wooden one. What have you done and what are you doing? We love to see what ideas othersmokers have - we love to see new ideas and are never too old to learn from others. 👍👍

Transglutaminase (or "Meat Glue") is a common ingredient in processed foods. It allows manufacturers to take smaller off-cut pieces of meat that would probably be wasted and re-form them into larger, more practical size joints. It is also used to create novel combinations of meat. If you have eaten any of the deli-counter, perfectly round, sliced ham, or the pre-packed squares of sliced ham then they almost certainly contains meat glue. It is not only confined to gluing together meat. It can glue most foods that contain sufficient quantities of glutamine and lysine. What It's Used For Makes "steaks" out of glued together meat chunks. Makes imitation crab meat, chicken nuggets, and fish balls. Creates reconstituted steaks, fillets, roasts, and cutlets. Makes uniform meat portions that cook evenly and reduce waste. Binds meat mixtures (sausages, hot dogs) without using casings. Improves mouth feel, water retention, and appearance of processed meats. Makes novel meat combinations like lamb and scallops or bacon and beef. Makes meat noodles (shrimp noodles) and other cuisine oddities. For use in molecular gastronomy. Thickens egg yolks. Strengthens dough mixtures. Thickens dairy products (yogurt, cheese.) Increases yield in tofu production. In the US and EU/UK Transglutaminase is not considered an ingredient as it will already be naturally present in most foods containing meat. It therefore does not to be included in the ingredients list on food labeling. It is instead classed as a "processing aid". If it is present you will usually find the words "formed" or "re-formed" on the label. .

It can be a challenge trying to fill your days during the pandemic lockdown, however if you are looking for something different to try and are at a loss as to what to do with all that "meat glue" that you have left in your fridge, then I have the perfect thing for you - High Tec Mushroom Burgers. The base recipe for these came from a chefs forum that I can highly recommend - www.chefsteps.com. Take 1.5 Kg of mushrooms (I used a tray of Portobello mushrooms from Bookers), clean thoroughly and bake in an oven for 20 minutes at 190 C. After roasting, the mushrooms will begin to shrivel and release their liquid. Blend the mushrooms and press out the liquid Add in 10g of salt and 8g of Yeast Flakes. The yeast flakes give a savoury, almost cheesy, flavour. I use this as a flavour enhancer rather than the MSG that the original recipe states. Mix well. Now for the "high tec" bit... Combine 50g of Sodium Caseinate and 50g of Transglutaminase (meat glue) together in a separate bowl and mix thoroughly. Ttransglutaminase is a naturally occurring enzyme and works by creating a bond between two types of protein, glutamine and lysine. It is widely used in the cooked meat trade to create large joints out of smaller pieces of meat. Mushrooms also contain both glutamine and lysine and so the transglutaminase works in the same way. The sodium caseinate helps to enhance the effectiveness of the "glue". Add the sodium caseinate and Transglutaminase mix to the mushrooms and mix well. The mixture will get quite stiff. Place on clingfilm and mold into a cylinder shape. Roll into a sausage. The diameter of the sausage should be the diameter of the final mushroom burger patty. After you have formed the roll with 3 layers of wrap, use a tooth pick to prick out any air bubbles under the wrap. Continue to roll another 4 layers of wrap before tying the ends with string. Place in the fridge for 24 hours to allow the meat glue to work its magic. Cook in a water bath at 65 C for one hour. If you have a Sous Vide then this is the perfect time to use it. If the mushroom sausage floats then use something heavy to keep it submerged. Here I am using a pair of BBQ tongs. Allow to chill thoroughly in the fridge and then unwrap. Slice into individual burger patties. These can be frozen for later use. Cook as you would a normal meat burger and serve A lovely mushroomy burger that will delight your vegetarian guests

The Callow is good for cold smoking too. The cold smoke generator that works well with it is the ProQ sawdust cold smoke generator https://blackboxbbq.co.uk/products/proq-cold-smoking-generator It produces little heat and sufficient smoke for the size of the smoker.

If you have not included a twin probe digital thermometer in your Christmas list you may want to add it to your New Year's wish list. All of the low-and-slow cooking relies on good temperature control and so a thermometer is essential. One that you can check at a distance makes it easier. If you already have one that is great. If not let us know and we can suggest some tried and tested inexpensive ones for you.

Hi Rob - Welcome to the forum. It is great that you have decided to start on your smoking journey and and we will give you all the help we can. It is fun to cook for the family but I know some chefs also use their smokers to create some distinctive touches for their menus. Do you know what you will be wanting to try smoking first?

Just need some poppadom and raita flavoured popcorn to go with it. 🍿🌶

No, don't throw it away yet. Rinse well and cut off a small piece and cook it in a pan. Taste it to check how salty it is before deciding whether to keep or chuck. Don't forget that the endmist slice will taste the saltiness. If it tastes OK then continue with the smoke. Over brining it will not make it unsafe to eat.

The above I would turn into smoked salmon fillets and smoke for 8 hours - you may want to cut the larger fillets in two but keep the tail fillets whole. When you come to eat them cook them in the oven on a baking tray for 12 minutes at 180 C. This is the way we prefer to eat our salmon at home. If you want to turn them into traditional smoked salmon then smoke for about 18-20 hours for that size of fillet. Don't think that the smoked fillets are in any way inferior to the traditional smoked salmon - we make and eat a lot if salmon and the fillets are by far our favourite.

Yes. If you are looking to make traditional smoked salmon then smoke for 24 hours in a warm smoker (~20c) and there is good air flow. If making smoked salmon fillets then limit the smoking time to about 8 hours.

Very nice colour

Hi Eric and welcome to the forum You have some lovely looking salmon there. Do you catch it yourself or do you buy it in? It looks great vac packed on the gold card Do you slice it before you pack it? The hot smoked salmon steaks look delicious too. I do a version where I cold smoke the steaks and then cook them before eating them. An impressive batch of chillies. Do you smoke them for Chipotle? The home smoked and dried chillies cannot be beaten for flavour.

You will have already seen just how much brine is released from the salmon but for the benefit of others I have included some photos of the brine produced by the Salmon I did yesterday which shows it well. Curing the salmon on wire racks allows the brine to drip through away from the fish Almost half a litre of brine was produced by 3 salmon fillets 800 ml of brine produced by 3 whole salmon If the fish is left in contact with the brine throughout the curing process then it will become increasingly salty - especially towards the thinner tail end.

Hi Peter Yes it seems that we do. The main difference I think are the cake cooling racks. These help keep the salmon completely out of the brine. As you know, there can be A LOT of brine produced. As cod is not an oily fish it will not cure in the same way as salmon. For white fish (like Haddock and Cod) try the brine method. It works well. I have not posted it up as a separate thread but it is detailed earlier in this thread.

Hi Peter As with most things in life there is no single right way of producing smoked salmon - though there are certainly wrong ways. From what you say, your way sounds fine and if it produces an end result that you like then stick with it For beginners though, the method I described above takes out guesswork of "how much salt?" and "for how long?". I started off using the method similar to yours, where the salmon is covered in salt for the entire curing time, but I always found that this method usually resulted in an end product that was too salty for my pallet - I have a fairly low salt tolerance. This is because, when you completely cover the fish in salt, the brine has nowhere to go and so remains in contact with the fish for the duration of the cure. This limits the time you can cure as the longer you cure the saltier the salmon gets! Contrary to your expectations, the method I use results in a far less salty end product. This is because only a minimal amount of salt is applied to the surfaces of the fish and the brine produced by the salt is then allowed to drain away through the racks, completely away from the fish. You can cure this way for 12, 18 or 24 hours and you would not end up with an over salty end product. The curing time does depend on the size/thickness of the fillet. I use ~18 hours for trout and 24 hours for larger salmon. To pellicle or not to pellicle? Now that is a question. I too allow mine to dry before putting it in the smoker however when I have been in a hurry, and have not had the time to wait, I have not noticed any difference in the end result. As soon as the salmon goes into the smoker the surface will naturally start to dry and form a pellacle there anyway. The purpose of producing the traditional smoked salmon is to end up with glossy, golden, translucent slices of fish. This is achieved by reducing its moisture content, and therefore proportionally increasing percentage of the natural fish oils. I have been given a number of samples of home produced smoked salmon to taste over the years and often the slices are opaque and pink. This is usually the result of an insufficient amount of water being removed. To achieve the desired texture you need to remove ~15%-18% of the weight of the fish in water. Until you have gained experience it can be a challenge for beginners to know when this has been achieved without weighing. Once you have the eye for it you can sell by simply squeezing. From a food safety perspective, part of the preservation process with the salmon involves removing a sufficient amount of the water to inhibit bacterial growth. This is less important with smoked salmon than with other foods, as it will be kept refrigerated and eaten within about 10 days. These days the smoking of salmon is more about producing a pleasing taste and texture - rather than preserving it for long term storage.

You can use clingfilm, however that isn't air tight and you will find that the frozen food still develops freezer-burn as it loses water through water sublimation. A better solution would be to use zip lock freezer bags with as much of the air removed as possible. I understand what you mean about having "another gadget" if space is tight. Side suck vacuum sealers are inexpensive though and have a lot of uses around the kitchen. They can significantly increase the shelf life of some foods too as they remove the air/oxygen from around the food, inhibiting bacterial growth.

It will be interesting to hear how the Stilton turns out. I have tried smoking it a few years ago and wasn't impressed with the results. If you have a mild Stilton it may smoke better but as a general rule many of the stronger cheeses are not enhanced by smoking them. With the Mozzarella you need to take care when looking online as to how long it will last, as many of the smoked Mozzarella recipes are talking about the harder, low moisture Mozzarella - or Provolone. This will last for up to 28 days after smoking when kept refrigerated and covered. The softer "fresh" Mozzarella in the whey has a much higher water content and has a much shorter shelf life. Regardless of the use-by date on the pack, once opened the soft Mozzarella should be consumed within 5 days. Draining and smoking it will reduce the moisture content slightly and will increase the refrigerated shelf life to about 14 days. This is more an art rather than a science as the more water that is removed the longer it will keep (within reason). The soft smoked Mozzarella is best stored in the fridge, either in a covered bowl or wrapped in muslin. You could use loose clingfilm but you want to keep it dry as you are trying to preserve the protective harder outer skin that forms during the smoking process. If you vac pac it you will squeeze the higher levels of moisture that remain in the centre back to the outside - softening the protective outer layer.

The answer is both yes and no. Salmon is classed as an oily fish and Haddock is classed as a white fish. You can smoke salmon in a similar way to the way you would smoke haddock to produce a moist fillet/steak that has a smoky flavour, however you cannot smoke haddock in a way that would produce something similar to traditional smoked salmon. It is all down to the oil content of the fish - oily fish contain around 30% oil. When producing traditional smoked salmon you are removing most of the water in the fish fillets but the high oil content keeps it "moist" and gives you the translucent sliceable flesh that you expect. Here is a method for smoking Haddock. You do not need to hang it in the same was as shown in the post - it can be placed on wire cooling racks.

Hi Alan What problem have you run into? Ask away here and we can either point you to the most appropriate area or answer it directly. Cheers, Wade

One of my customers has Icelandic friends and they were recently given some Hangikjöt. They enjoyed it so much that they asked me if I could produce some for them. Without hesitation I immediately replied... "WTF is Hangikjöt???" I did a bit of investigation online and found that it is effectively lamb with a gammon or bacon cure that is smoked. There are actually several versions - one that is wet brine cured, another that is dry cured - both of which you roast. Another is dry cured and then air dried. As we were so close to Christmas I thought that it would be worth giving the wet brine roasting joint style a try. As they raise lamb on their farm, they supplied the lamb and I am doing the rest. *** just a note on the smoking. The Icelandic's burn animal dung for the authentic smoke flavour - but my EHO didn't seem too keen on that. I am therefore using Hickory instead. A selection of lamb joints As a first attempt and with limited time, I am doing an injection cure. This will not only speed up the cure time but will also help protect against sour bone. Left for 7 days to cure and now in the smoker They have already had a day and a half in the smoker. I will take them out tomorrow and vac pac them, place hem in the fridge to allow the smoke flavour to penetrate between now and Christmas. I am curious as to how they will turn out. I will let you know.

The winter is a very good time to smoke as it is easier to be in control of the smoke chamber temperatures. The most challenging is often the summer (especially the past couple of years) when the outside temperature has actually been too hot to smoke certain things. For winter smoking you simply need a source of heat and a temperature controller. These are quite inexpensive. The Inkbird ITC-308 is a very cost-effective thermostatic controller that enables the control of both heating and cooling. They are readily available for under £30 on Amazon and if you message @Inkbird they may be able to suggest the best place to buy and even give you a discount code. There is also a WiFi enabled version that allows you to monitor and control it from your phone. I have recently installed the WiFi version to control my commercial cold smoker. The next thing you will need is a ceramic bulb heat lamp and holder Heat lamp holder - £13 https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/9038031192?iid=401523948101 Heat lamp bulb - £8 https://www.finest-filters.co.uk/100w-ceramic-heat-lamp-bulb-for-reptile-vivarium-heating-es-fitting/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAtqL-BRC0ARIsAF4K3WHY8C2G0hn75Dc3EnphrTzusMY6P2fkfYxHC9XE0zBtywRpLvm_6kkaAoupEALw_wcB Once you have these you will be able to cold smoke reliably in your WSM all year round. The ITC- 308 controller has a temperature probe that will poke into either the thermometer hole in the side of the WSM or in through the top air vent. This controls a power block with 2 x UK plug sockets - one for heating and the other for cooling. Place the ceramic heater in the bottom of the WSM - make sure that it isn't directly underneath the smoke generator because of falling ash. The power cable is thin and can be fed in around the edge of the side door. Even in the coldest of UK winters, if you set the thermostat to 20 C it will keep the smoke chamber at ~20 C. Set it at 10 C and that is what you will get. It is worth insulating the WSM with a blanket though in very cold temperatures as this will help to maintain a steadier internal temperature. Great for the winter, but what about the summer? The cooling side does not need to power a fridge - you can simply use it to power a big fan. Make sure the smoker is in the shade - away from direct sunshine - and place the fan so that it blows air around the outside of the smoking chamber for cooling. Take care that it does not blow air into the bottom vents as this will have the opposite effect as your smoke generator, rather than smoldering, bursts into flames. I use the same temperature control in my large smoker however I have a pair of heaters which I have mounted in a bent aluminium frame. You do not need to do this though as you can easily make a bent wire holder to stop the bulb from resting against the side of the smoker. I hope this helps.

Hi Alan What kind of salmon are you trying to produce? Traditional cold smoked salmon? If so then this is best smoked a little warmer than the cheese as part of the process is to remove water. The cheese is good up to about 10-18 C whereas the salmon is best smoked around 20 C with a good air flow passing over it. You mentioned about the bottom vents being sufficiently open you did not mention the top vents. It is important to leave the top vents open so that the smoke/air can pass over the food and out the top. If the top vent is left closed it will have three effects: It will cause the heavier tars in the smoke to condense on the food, often resulting in creosote taints If the chamber cools (for instance if the smoke generator goes out) the moisture in the chamber will condense on the surface of the food often resulting in musty flavours. The oxygen around the smoke generator will diminish - often to the point where the smoke generator will go out (especially at cooler ambient temperatures) With the dust smoke generators (especially in cooler temperatures), firstly make sure your sawdust is dry. Microwaving it on high for 2-3 minutes and stirring will heat it and moisture will be driven off. As @Icefevermentioned you can put it on a baking tray in the oven at ~100 C for 10 minutes or so. When it is dry store it in a sealed plastic bag in a dry place. Yes you should press the sawdust down to compact it a little before lighting. In really cold temperatures wrap a blanket around the smoker body to allow the heat from the smoke generator to be retained. It will usually provide enough heat to keep itself going, however if the generator gets really cold, the air is damp and the oxygen levels are low, there there is a high probability that the generator will go out.

Personally yes. Hickory is the choice of most of my smokery products. It is distinctive, sweet but not overpowering. It is down to personal taste though. Some of my products use a Hickory/Oak blend as the Oak dilutes the Hickory flavour a little. Try several types of wood and find out which you prefer. All of the mainstream smoking woods will taste fine - just avoid the really strong woods like Mesquite until you have a better idea of your own preferences.

It is down to personal taste and the smoke. I usually smoke mine for 12-16 hours with Hickory. Both of yours are in the right timeframe