How to make a smokehouse for hot and cold smoking

One of the ways of cooking food is smoking. And we all at least once tried smoked bacon, fish, meat or even fruit. After such treatment, the products not only receive a specific taste and aroma, but also become more adapted to storage. This effect is achieved due to bacteriological substances that are in smoke smoke. And everyone who has a dacha or a rural home can independently subject the products to such treatment. And for this you need very little - to make a smokehouse with your own hands.

As everyone knows, there is a cold and hot smoking. And hot smoking products that are not intended for long-term storage are exposed. And this process takes relatively little time. For example, to quickly smoke a ham it takes about a day. A smoke at the same time should have a temperature of 50-60 degrees. And if in the farm there are 2-3 barrels or tubs, then the question will be solved, how to make a smokehouse with their own hands.

And for this it is necessary to take these tubs or barrels and remove the bottom from them. Then they are mounted on top of each other. And between these containers stretched filter. In this capacity, you can use a rare sacking or wet sickle. This filter will purify the smoke from soot. Now in the bottom barrel you need to arrange a furnace, that is, put a steel sheet and burn the wood on it. And in the upper barrel, respectively, fit to hang with products subject to smoking. And all this structure is covered with sacking. With it, you can adjust the amount and temperature of the smoke. It's so easy to decide for yourself how to make a smokehouse.

There is one more important aspect that concerns firewood for smoking. They must continuously smolder in the furnace, the combustion process is unacceptable! Firewood for smoking should be taken necessarily dry and add to them sawdust. After all, raw firewood not only burns slowly, they also make the smoke very wet. And soot at the same time sticks to the surface of the products, giving them a completely unappetizing look. And the choice of wood for these firewood is no less important than the question itself, how to make a smokehouse. For this, do not take firewood. The resin contained in the pine and spruce will give smoke with a pungent smell that will spoil the taste of the products. A good firewood for smoking can be obtained from hardwoods. For this, alder, beech, ash, and other similar species are suitable. You can take and birch firewood. But they need to remove the bark, which contains tar.

And that the products can be stored for a long time, cold smoking is applied . Compared with hot smoking, this process is more time consuming and laborious. But if you use modern technology, you can solve the problem of how to make a smoking smoker. The variant with barrels here, of course, does not fit. Such a smokehouse is very different from the "hot" option. After all, with cold smoking is the task to get cold smoke with a temperature of up to 35 degrees. And when smoked salty foods will require an even lower temperature of the smoke.

There is another important point in the matter of how to make a smokehouse. It should have a good draft from the furnace to the smoking chamber. Arrange it is not very simple. After all, the pull depends on what is the difference between the temperature of the smoke and the temperature of the surrounding environment. Therefore, to get a good cold smokehouse, you need to solve two problems. The first task is the installation of a sufficiently long chimney. Its length should be 5 - 10 meters. With a shorter length of the chimney, the smoke will not have time to cool down to the required temperature. And the second task is a reliable draft from the furnace to the smokehouse.

But even in the old days people managed to solve these problems. They simply arranged cold smokehouses on steep slopes of precipices or hills, from their windward side. Quite long chimneys were located right in the ground. To do this, dig a trench on the hillside and block it with sticks, and on top of them were laid branches and turf. At the bottom of the chimney a fire was lit, and a smokehouse was set up at the top. At the same time, the wind helped blow out smoke in such a chimney.

Now you can also solve this problem and arrange a cold smokehouse of much smaller dimensions. To create traction, you can use a smoke exhaust fan (fan), and a special collector will perform the function of the smoke cooler. Products in a smoking chamber can be placed on a grate or suspended on special garters or even in grids. It remains only to kindle and maintain a stable fire in the furnace during the entire smoking process. And it lasts for 2 - 3 days.