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Cold Smoking When Outside Temperature Below Freezing


sotv

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I have a couple of slabs of bacon ready to cold smoke. Forecast to go below zero and a frost tonight. Is it ok to smoke when temp goes below freezing. So many few dry nights forecast for the coming days and weeks. Need to take advantage of a dry 24 hours where possible at the moment, if ok to do so.

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If not smoking it should be ok?  I now on Salmon need a temp of about 20C so I use a ceramic bulb sett up with a pid controller bubble wrap around a wsm, not sure about bacon but i imagine so, you do not want it freezing

@Wade

Edited by Justin
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Smoking on a cold day is not too much of an issue - so long as the inside of the smoker does not drop to freezing. If the food gets too cold though you will get more of the unpleasant tars condensing on the surface. Most of the flavour that penetrates the bacon does so in the fridge after it has been smoked - in a similar way that cure takes several days to penetrate the meat - so does the smoke. 

Usually the smoke generator will keep the inside of the chamber a few degrees higher than the outside - so as long as the generator stays alight you will find that the temperature in the chamber should be OK.

I have a thermostatic heater in my cold smoker - though before I did, on very cold nights I would just move the generator a little closer to the food being smoked - taking care that it was not too close. When doing this, to prevent the food heating, I would place a baffle plate or a tray of water between the generator and the food.

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Thanks for the advice. Stuck it on now, not meant to go higher than 8c today and hopefully the same Sunday. Should get 20-24 hours of dry weather so hopefully all will be good. Looks like it might be a hard frost tonight, so decided against running it through the night.

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21 hours ago, Raptor72 said:

Also I do wonder with the length of Time needed smoking . 
I like smoked food but not so much it detracts from the flavour of something. 

100%..when I started smoking bacon I did 11 hours and found it too much for our tastes buds,  keep it on 9 hours and it's spot on for us...but it's all down to what you want & like.

 

Ice.

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4 hours ago, Icefever said:

100%..when I started smoking bacon I did 11 hours and found it too much for our tastes buds,  keep it on 9 hours and it's spot on for us...but it's all down to what you want & like.

 

Ice.

Yeah I was also interested in the science of smoke penetration ( ohhh matron ) . I wondered is there a limit to how far it penetrates . Or are you building more of a smoke particle build up on the outside ? 

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I like Silver Birch wood dust to smoke all my meats, cheeses and salmon and find it quite mild and a less bitter in finished smoke flavour compared to some other woods. So  I now increase the smoke times I would do with say with oak by up to 25% to get a good balance of flavour for my and families tastes.

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  • 3 months later...

I like Silver Birchwood dust to smoke all my meats, cheeses and salmon and find it quite mild and a less bitter in finished smoke flavour compared to another woods. So I now increase the smoke times i would do with say with oak by up to 25% to induce an honest balance of flavor for my and families' tastes.

Edited by Smokin Monkey
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