Smoking cabinets: devices for cold and hot smoking

Smoked products not only have a pleasant aroma and taste, but also have a long shelf life. In mass meals, natural smoking is most often replaced by the process of processing with liquid smoke. Smoking cabinets are devices for cold and hot smoking. They allow you to make smoked fish or meat delicacies at home. You just need to purchase suitable equipment or make it yourself.

The design of the smoking cabinet will largely depend on the specific purpose of this equipment. The device can have different modes of operation depending on what temperature needs to be maintained inside the cabinet.

There are three different types of smoking procedure.

• Hot. The smoke temperature in this case should be at least seventy degrees. The maximum value can reach one hundred and twenty degrees. This procedure can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to four hours, depending on the size of the products.
• Semi-hot. The temperature should be between sixty and seventy degrees. In this way, only very fresh semi-finished products can be processed.
• Cold. The smoke temperature should not exceed fifty degrees. The minimum allowable temperature value is thirty degrees. This procedure takes a lot of time, which can range from several hours to several days.

Smoking equipment has a difference in design and some characteristics. The device of the smoking cabinet completely depends on what type of smoking it is intended for.

Appliances of all types must have three main functions.

• Ensure uniform heating of food. The temperature and smoke in the cabinet must act evenly on the semi-finished product. Otherwise, the taste of smoked meats will be spoiled.
• The smoke in the chamber should be light.
• The design must ensure gradual penetration of smoke into the food.

Low-temperature smoking equipment consists of the following main elements:

• combustion chamber;
• smoking cabinet;
• chimney.

For the manufacture of the firebox, bricks or metal are most often used. The design of the chamber should allow easy cleaning of ash during smoking. Since a rather corrosive dark-colored smoke is emitted when lighting firewood, a smoke damper must be equipped in the firebox. It will direct smoke into the chimney or take it out of the smoking cabinet to the outside.

Since the cold smoking process does not require high temperatures, the smoking cabinet can be made from the simplest materials, for example, some types of wood or stainless steel.

The most convenient option would be a barrel made of wood or metal. A hole is made at the bottom of the product to allow smoke to enter the chamber. To place food in the smoking chamber inside the barrel, it is necessary to fix metal grates or hang hooks. You can use a moistened burlap as a lid.

A distinctive feature of the design of cold smoking devices is a long chimney. For the manufacture of such a structure, metal is best suited. However, it should be remembered that the metal chimney requires regular cleaning of soot. You can dig a chimney in the ground, then the soil will absorb condensate containing carcinogens.

Hot smoking takes place at rather high temperatures. This temperature is achieved not by burning wood, but by burning special chips. The smoking time depends on the size of the food, but is in any case much shorter than the cold smoke treatment time. The combustion chamber in hot-working devices should be located directly under the smoking chamber. The firebox can be built from a gas burner for boilers or an electric stove.

The closing structure of the smoking chamber can be equipped with a water seal. It is a small depression according to the size of the chamber and lid. Water is poured into the resulting tank. From above, the structure is closed with a lid. This creates a barrier that protects the camera from outside air and does not release smoke from the inside.

Hooks or grates for products are placed inside the smoking chamber. The grill can be made by yourself or you can take a barbecue product. An indispensable element of the chamber for processing hot smoke is a container for dripping fat and dripping juice from semi-finished products. The pallet should be easily removed from the equipment, as it must be periodically cleaned of accumulated dirt.

Devices for semi-hot smoking have the simplest design. Most often, this type of equipment is used for home processing of meat and fish products. It can be built from a gas cooker with a hood or from a steel box. The thickness of the walls of the stainless steel box should be at least one and a half millimeters, of black steel - three millimeters.

The smoking box should be equipped with a lid, a grease collection container and food grates. Chips are poured onto the bottom of the cabinet, after which the product is placed over the fire. The shavings smolder when exposed to high temperatures, forming smoke in the chamber. A small hole can be drilled on the lid of the product so that a small amount of smoke escapes when smoking.

Making a smokehouse with your own hands for a particular method of processing meat and fish semi-finished products will not be particularly difficult. It is only important to know how the device works for this or that type of smoking. Ready-made instructions and equipment drawings can be easily found on the Internet.

The cold smoke treatment device is most often made from a wooden or metal barrel. Devices made of wood are convenient because they can be insulated from the inside, unlike metal products. Any material that does not emit toxic substances when heated can serve as a heater: cellulose wool, mineral wool, felt. Hot work structures are best made of stainless steel.

As an example, it is worth considering a home-made design of a low-temperature cabinet from a barrel with a volume of 100-200 liters. The upper part of the tank is completely cut off, and a hole is made in the lower part for connecting the chimney. A tray for collecting fat can be made from the cut part of the barrel. For semi-finished products in the chamber, it is necessary to make a grate or hang hooks on rods from reinforcement.

The chamber lid is best made of wood. 5 to 10 holes are drilled into the product for moisture to escape. You can use burlap instead of a wooden lid. Before starting smoking, the material must be moistened in cold water and squeezed thoroughly.

For information on how to make a do-it-yourself smoking cabinet, see the video below.