Mike Van de Elzen: Getting smoky flavour into food

Hot Smoking  

- Food is smoked inside the same unit as a fire source.

- In the Engel fire, you can move the fire basket closer or further away from the food being smoked, controlling the temperature.

-Making a hot smoker can be as easy as finding a steel cabinet with shelves, drilling a number of holes into the bottom and top. Then creating a small fire in the bottom of the cabinet and closing the box.  Or using your gas stove and a heavy steel tray. 

- Always brine your meats first and ensure you have a certain amount of ventilation in the top of the box to allow moisture out. 

Cold smoking 

-Food is smoked in an adjoining unit to the fire source.

-Here at the school we use a UFO - a small metal cylinder filled with wood chips, connected on one side to a fish pump and the other, an adjoining chamber. 

- The product you are smoking must be as dry as possible and ideally cut or broken up into pieces, creating more edges for the smoke to stick to. 

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