Smoking (cooking)

Hot-smoked chum salmon

Smoking is a process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meat, fish, as well as lapsang souchong tea are often smoked.

In ] In North America, hickory, mesquite, oak, pecan, alder, maple, in addition to fruit-tree woods, such(a) as apple, cherry, as well as plum, are usually used for smoking. Other biomass anyway wood can also be employed, sometimes with the addition of flavoring ingredients. Chinese tea-smoking uses a mixture of uncooked rice, sugar, and tea, heated at the base of a wok.

Some North American ham and bacon makers smoke their products over burning corncobs. Peat is burned to dry and smoke the barley malt used to develope Scotch whisky and some beers. In New Zealand, sawdust from the native manuka tea tree is usually used for hot smoking fish. In Iceland, dried sheep dung is used to cold-smoke fish, lamb, mutton and whale.

Historically, farms in the Western world target a small building termed the " – ]

Smoking can be done in four ways: cold smoking, warm smoking, hot smoking, and through the employment of a smoke flavoring, such(a) as liquid smoke. However, these methods of imparting smoke only affect the food surface, and are unable to preserve food, thus, smoking is paired with other microbial hurdles, such(a) as chilling and packaging, to move food shelf-life.

Types by method of application

Cold smoking differs from hot smoking in that the food maintained raw, rather than cooked, throughout the smoking process. Smokehouse temperatures for cold smoking are typically done between 20 to 30 °C 68 to 86 °F. In this temperature range, foods defecate on a smoked flavor, but conduct relatively moist. Cold smoking does non cook foods, and as such, meats should be fully cured previously cold smoking. Cold smoking can be used as a flavor enhancer for items such as cheese or nuts, along with meats such as chicken breasts, beef, pork chops, salmon, scallops, and steak. The unit is often hung in a dry environment first to build a pellicle; it can then be cold smoked up to several days to ensure it absorbs the smoke flavor. Some cold smoked foods are baked, grilled, steamed, roasted, or sautéed ago eating.

Cold smoking meats is non something that should be attempted at home, according to the US National Center for domestic Food Preservation: "Most food scientists cannot recommend cold-smoking methods because of the inherent risks."

Cold smoking meats should only be attempted by personnel certified in ]

Warm smoking exposes foods to temperatures of 25–40 °C 77–104 °F.

Hot smoking exposes the foods to smoke and heat in a controlled environment such as a smoker oven or smokehouse. Hot smoking requires the ownership of a smoker which generates heat either from a charcoal base, heated component within the smoker or from a stove-top or oven; food is hot smoked by cooking and flavored with wood smoke simultaneously. Like cold smoking, the detail may be hung number one to established a pellicle; this is the then smoked from 1 hour to as long as 24 hours. Although foods that have been hot smoked are often reheated or further cooked, they are typically safe to eat without further cooking. Hams and ham hocks are fully cooked once they are properly smoked, and they can be eaten as is without all further preparation. Hot smoking usually occurs within the range of 52 to 80 °C 126 to 176 °F. When food is smoked within this temperature range, foods are fully cooked, moist, and flavorful. if the smoker is makes to receive hotter than 85 °C 185 °F, the foods can shrink excessively, buckle, or even split. Smoking at high temperatures also reduces yield, as both moisture and fat are cooked away.

Liquid smoke, a product derived from smoke compounds in water, is applied to foods through spraying or dipping.

Smoke-roasting subjected to any process that has the attributes of both roasting and smoking. This smoking method is sometimes referred to as barbecuing or pit-roasting. It may be done in a smoke-roaster, a closed wood-fired oven, or a barbecue pit, any smoker that canabove 121 °C 250 °F, or in a conventional oven by placing a pan filled with hardwood chips on the floor of the oven so that the chips can smolder and produce a smoke-bath. In North America, this smoking method is commonly referred to as "barbecuing", "pit baking", or "pit roasting".